One Step Back to You
by TortieCat86
Summary: Before Rose, there were a hundred steps to go. After Rose, the path to their happy-ever-after seemed endless, but even the most arduous journey begins with one step. Derek and Meredith need to meet in the middle. M/D. Post 4.11. Reviews always adored
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is the first fic I've posted here. If you haven't seen episode 4.04, this will contain spoilers for you. After Derek's little speech, I felt like Meredith deserved her turn to lay everything on the table, too--and she _had_ spent the whole day trying to get better at yelling. It would be a shame if she didn't put all that practice to use. And poor Derek is getting a hard time over the not-knowing what he'd do thing, which was, granted, a pretty stupid thing to say, but I don't think he meant it as a threat. So...this is just a little one-shot immediately after 4.04. It turned out a little fluffier than I meant for it to, but...I tried to make it somewhat balanced. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Oh, and title comes from "Trying", by Lifehouse. **

As she drove off the ferry, Meredith still wasn't sure she knew what she was doing. This was probably a little crazy. The clock-radio, emitting an eerie green glow from its display, read 10:37. She'd gotten off work a half-hour before, two hours after him. Two hours since she'd heard what she could only describe as his ultimatum. Two hours that she'd been unable to focus on anything but his words, and her own response to them. Rationally, she knew this could wait until morning. The Bainbridge ferry took a half-hour each way, and that wasn't even factoring in the drive to his land and the trailer. The trailer she could only assume he was staying in tonight, since he'd made it clear he wouldn't be waiting when she got home. Realistically, this could wait until morning, but Meredith had had two hours to pull herself together, and she wasn't sleeping until she said her mind.

She'd felt more like herself lately, more like the confident, bossy Meredith she'd been at the start of her internship—the passionate force of nature, as her mother would say. Before Addison, before her mother's condition had worsened, before Finn and her bout of appendicitis, before her mother's lucid day and the deep damage her caustic words had left on Meredith's psyche. Before the ferry crash and the drowning and the dying and the dead mommy, before thinking that her father might actually be coming back, before losing a fake mommy and a father, too, and then losing her faith in her and Derek. Before the intern year from hell had beaten her down and broken her spirit, Meredith had held it all together pretty well, but when the flood gates opened, there had been no stopping the waves of self-doubt and loathing from swallowing her whole. Derek had saved her from drowning once, and since she'd come back from Hawaii with Cristina, he'd been her life raft. Not her savior—she was capable of swimming on her own—but something to hold on, some little piece of familiarity and deep down, though she was reluctant to admit it, a hope.

It wasn't just sex. She knew it wasn't. She wanted it to be, or thought she did. Right now, it was all she could handle. She wasn't ready to let go of him—their "break-up" in the on-call room had proven that—but she couldn't do the relationship thing. He was trying to pull her in before she'd gotten a good hold on the rope—it had been too much, but she knew if she let go completely, she'd be lost. So, she was content, for now, to bob along, holding onto the life preserver until she was strong enough to let him draw her back. Sex kept them connected, but he wasn't demanding more—not too much, anyway, and bit by bit, she was feeling more secure, more confident that he would hold her up and not drop her back under.

This morning—it seemed like years ago now—but just this morning he'd wanted to take her away for the weekend. Forty-eight hours with Derek. Just Derek, and her. It was a couple-y thing. He made it sound like it was about sex, but she knew it wasn't. Derek was good. Really good. But even he couldn't last forty-eight hours. It wouldn't—couldn't—be only about sex, and even she couldn't delude herself to think it would be. It was forty-eight hours of togetherness, of meals and sharing beds and all the other things Meredith adamantly insisted they were _not_ about, but she'd agreed anyway. Because forty-eight hours of Derek, even if they weren't all about sex, was an offer she couldn't refuse. So she'd talked to Alex and gotten him to cover her shift, and she'd caught herself grinning at the butterflies in her stomach all day.

And then it all came crashing down. He was there, and said things. He said things that…she'd suspected, but never heard from him. Things about forever. And he was right—she'd wanted to run. Because he'd promised her, just four days ago, that he'd slow down, but then again, she'd promised him that he could tell her anything, and she wouldn't break that promise to him. She was trying. She wasn't ready, he knew it, but she could be ready, maybe. One day. And she offered him that. But what if? That if stood between them—if he found someone else, someone who was ready, someone who could be whole and bright and shiny and everything that dark, twisty Meredith wasn't? What then? He didn't know.

The lights were on in the trailer when she pulled up next to his car. He wouldn't be asleep yet. He'd be in bed, dressed in a t-shirt and pajama pants, because the trailer was notoriously cold at night and he'd only sleep naked with her next to him for warmth, and probably reading whatever novel he'd picked up most recently, because he tried to avoid bringing medical journals and work home with him. His hair would still be just a little damp near the roots from the shower he would have taken when he got home, and an empty mug of decaf would be on the counter. He might not have heard her car pull up, if he had music on, and he wouldn't see her approach through the windows, but she knew he heard when she rapped on the metal door.

Her stomach lurched as his footsteps grew louder, and she bit her bottom lip out of habit. She inhaled sharply as he opened the door and stared back at her with wide-eyed surprise.

"Hey," she breathed. "Can I come in?"

He stepped aside and freed the doorway. "Of course. Is everything okay?"

"No," she said flatly. He quirked an eyebrow in reply, but she pressed forward before he could speak. "No, everything is not okay. We need to talk."

"Meredith—"

"Shut up," she interrupted. "You say Meredith and I yell. That's the way this works. It's my turn now, and I've been practicing my yelling all day and figuring out what to say to you for hours, and trying to convince myself that it was worth driving out here to say it to you, so shut up and let me talk."

He pressed his lips together and blinked in disbelief, but the creases around his eyes betrayed a hint of amusement. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall as she took a deep breath.

"You said things to me tonight. You said…really, really big things, Derek. And you're right, I fought every single instinct I had to turn and run, but what matters is that I didn't run. I said you could tell me anything, and you did, and even though what you said terrified me, I didn't run. That's a step, Derek. It's a baby step, I know, but it's a step. I didn't run from you, and Derek, seriously? Marriage and kids and forever—that's scary. I don't do families. You know that. You know what those things mean to me, and you want that from me…with me…and I don't know if I can give you those things. You want a lot, and I'm not ready. And you said you were okay with that; you said you would wait for me. You said you'd wait until I was ready.

"I can be ready, Derek. I can do this. I can't do it overnight, and it's going to take time. There's a lot to get past. I was screwed up long before you met me, and you made a lot of things better, but you also did your own share of messing me up. You've left me more than once. You've walked away more than once. I'm a girl with abandonment issues, and trust issues, and communication issues, and I told you I needed you to stay. You promised me you would, but you haven't always. You're not innocent in this, Derek. There are pieces that you broke, and now I have to fix them before I'm ready for all these perfect things that you want. I can do it. But I can't change myself for _you_, Derek. I can work on my daddy issues and the mommy issues, and the abandonment issues. I can work on trusting you again. I can do all that, but it has to be for _me_. If I only do it to please you and keep you, then all I'm doing is repeating the mistakes Cristina made with Burke. She didn't change for herself; she changed for him, and it didn't work. I don't want you to leave me at the altar, Derek. I don't want us to wake up one day and realize that we're miserable because I gave you what you wanted but never made myself happy for _me."_

The lines on Derek's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Meredith, I—"

"I'm not through!" she shook her head. ""Do you know what I did today, Derek? I spent the entire day being yelled at by Mark Sloane because I didn't double-check a chart and an intern made a mistake that cost the hospital a few hundred thousand dollars. If I'd done the charts myself, it wouldn't have happened, but I had an intern, and I'm supposed to teach the interns even though that's not supposed to be my responsibility for three more years, so I let the intern do the charts. But you know what the real kicker is, Derek? It wasn't my intern—it was _Alex's_ intern that I'd taken on for the day. Do you know _why_ I had Alex's intern? Because that was the deal I made with him so he'd cover my shift this weekend so I could go away with _you_. I _wanted_ to go away with you, Derek—you invited me, and we both know that it wouldn't have just been about sex, so me agreeing to go? That's a step, Derek. I know you want more than I can give you right now, but you asked for this and I gave it to you, but now—what, you take the offer back? When I push myself and give you what you want, and I'm actually _excited_ about it, it's still not enough?"

"You're not ready," Derek started. "You're not ready, I was asking for too much too soon—"

"But I would have _given_ it to you, Derek!" Meredith cried. "It would have been a step for us—for me! I get that you're ready to settle down, Derek. You wanted the family and the house and kids with Addison, and you didn't get it. But you know what? I _was_ ready. Before Addison, before everything else, you were it for me, and I wanted all of that with you. But you told me to take it all on faith, and I trusted you, and your wife showed up, and you walked away, and that pretty much killed my faith in us. It killed my faith in me, and I'm trying to get that back. Damn it, do you think I_want_ to be like this, Derek? Do you think I _like_ being dark and twisty Meredith, who's so freaking screwed up that she doesn't know how to be happy and let someone love her? I don't, Derek. I want to be better. I want to be happy again, and feel like I did before this entire past year happened to me, and I want to believe that we can be together and work."

She paused and bit down on her quivering lip. A single tear slid down her cheek, and she flinched as Derek reached out and brushed it away. When she found her voice again, she'd lost the fire and could only manage a soft pleading tone.

"I want to be ready, Derek, and I can't…I won't make you wait forever. I just need to know that when I am ready…that you'll still be there. That you'll be ready, too. You told me before the wedding that you could never leave me, and tonight you said that things could stay the same, that you'd wait until I was ready. But then you said you don't know what you'd do if someone else came along who was ready for what you need. I need you to know, Derek. You either love me, or you don't. You want me, or you don't. You're willing to wait for me, for as long as it takes, or you're not. I'm going to put myself back together no matter what, but if there's a chance that it could be too late for you, I need to know that. I need to know if you'll still be here when I'm ready. So what happens if you meet someone else, Derek? What do you want? The life with the picket fences and kids, or me?"

He let out a raspy breath, somewhere between an anguished groan and a frustrated sigh. "Everything I told you tonight about what I want for us is true," he replied. "I want to marry you. I want kids with you. I want to get rid of this tin box I'm living in and build a house for you—to get you out of the house you have so many bad memories in and give you a home for good ones. I want forever with _you_, Meredith. I want both."

"But you don't know what you'd do if I wasn't ready and you met someone else," she said.

He buried his face in his hands for a long moment, shaking his head before wearily running his fingers back through his hair and letting his arms fall to his side. He looked up to meet her gaze, his eyes a stormy blue maelstrom of emotion and desperation. "I'm an ass, Meredith. I know I am. When I said that earlier, I—I've had all these things I've wanted to say to you, and when you gave me the opportunity—I didn't say things the way I meant to. There's no one else, Mere. I don't _want_ there to be anyone else. I want you. Only you.

"I didn't mean it to sound like an ultimatum, like I'm giving you a time limit to change before I'm done with you, or a threat. I'm not looking for anyone else, and I want to wait for you. I will wait for you, and I will wait as long as I can. But what scares me is that…I wasn't looking for anyone when you came into my life and turned it upside down. I don't think anyone can be what you are to me, but that uncertainty…it scares me, Meredith. I don't know what could happen, but I know that what I _want_ to happen is you healing and getting to a place where we can be together, and I can marry you, and have kids with you, and grow old with you, and everything else I told you tonight."

"You are an ass," Meredith agreed.

"And you're right," Derek continued. "I'm partly to blame for what's happened to us. I haven't always been there when you needed me, and sometimes I've pushed too hard when you needed space. I've left you, I've hurt you, and I'm sorry."

Meredith stared down at the floor, watching the toe of her shoe scuff along the floor. Her fingers toyed with the band of her watch unconsciously and she didn't realize how hard she was biting her lip until she recognized the coppery taste of blood. "So what now?"

Derek stepped forward and slipped his hands around her waist, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. "Now…now you work on healing, and when you're ready to be with me, I'll be here waiting. And things can stay the way they are if you want them to. We can still have our on-call room dates, and I'll do anything you want to help you heal. I'm waiting for you, and you're working on it. Knowing that you want this too—it's enough, Mere. I just…I needed to know that this is what you want, eventually."

She smiled softly. "I'm not ready to give you up, Derek. Even if you are an ass with horrible timing and bad word choice."

He smirked and raised one hand to her face, resting his palm on her cheek as his thumb traced her cheekbones. "I'll work on that, too. I have things I need to get over, and things I did to you that need to be made right. We can do this, Mere. We'll just…take it as slow as we need to, and ultimately we'll find our way back."

"I hope so. And…you know, if you change your mind about taking me away for the weekend, I do have the time off," she added hopefully.

He frowned and slid his fingers back into her hair. "I still think this weekend isn't going to work out," he confessed. "I'm sorry that you went through so much to get your shift covered and I canceled on you. But if that's a step you're ready to take, I still want to take you. I have some time off next month. I'll talk to Richard and make sure you have the same weekend off, so you won't have to hang out with the world's old intern anymore or have Mark yell at you."

She laughed a little at that. "I want to. You promised me wine country and forty-eight uninterrupted hours together, so you owe me. I'd hate to have to add unfulfilled promises of vacations to the list of things you've done to hurt me that I have to get over."

"Hmm, now you're mocking your own emotional handicaps?" Derek teased.

"Sex and mockery," Meredith shrugged. "We're good at the mocking."

"We're good at the sex, too," Derek reminded her with a well-placed kiss. "Are you staying for a while?"

Meredith shook her head and pressed one palm against his chest. "I can't," she said reluctantly. "I don't think we should, not tonight. Not after everything that's happened today and the fighting and yelling. And I should go—the ferry and—"

Derek silenced her with another kiss. "You're right. I understand. Come on, I'll walk you out to your car."

He held open the door for her and she didn't pull away when he laced his fingers through hers. As they crossed the lawn to her Jeep, Meredith remembered the first time he'd brought her here. That had been the night of his infamous request that she take him on faith. She had, then. She'd embraced him and his trailer and his big family and coffee ice cream and motorcycle scars, and she hadn't asked questions or even hesitated, just held out her hand and let him take her inside. Somewhere, that blind trust that she'd had for him then still existed. As many times as she'd been burned, she was either stupid, masochistic, or ridiculously in love with him to still believe that they had anything resembling a chance at making it.

They arrived at her car and Derek stopped her before she could climb in, holding her around her waist in one hand and combing a few stray tendrils of her hair with the other. "Mere…" he murmured her name and hesitated, studying her face thoughtfully. "You didn't run tonight. I threw the rest of our lives at you, and you were terrified, but you didn't run. _I_ ran. I ran from you, but you followed me here. That's…that's a step for us. For you."

He tilted his head slightly and she heard the soft, thoughtful hum that she thought of as uniquely Derek's. Hmm. Nothing more, but that one purring syllable carried more meaning than a dozen words. He understood. He still got her. He did.

"Yeah," Meredith agreed with a wry smile. "I'm trying."

"You're trying," he nodded. After a few moments of silence, he stroked her cheek once more and sighed. "I should let you go."

"You should," she repeated. She turned and tugged open the car door, and accepted his hand as a boost inside. He stood with one hand on the door, ready to close it as soon as she cranked the ignition. "So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow, well, if you page me, or Callie puts me on your service, or I guess just…around…so…uh…"

He smirked at her awkward babbling. "Good night, Meredith," he laughed. "Thank you for driving out here tonight. I'm glad you did."

"Me, too," she admitted. "Good night." She reached out to pull the door shut, but not before she left a light kiss on Derek's lips. Soft, quick. Like a well-formed and deeply ingrained habit. Like she'd do it again every day for the rest of their lives.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I had originally intended this to be a one-shot story. And then the writing of the show got worse and I got more frustrated. I've been working on my season-four fix-it for several months, and I really meant to have more of it done before...well, today, when new episodes come back. My original intention was to do one "chapter" for each episode up to 4.11, and then fix-it from there. I realized about a week ago that I wasn't going to catch up in time, so I stopped somewhere around 4.7 and skipped to 4.11, which is this update, taking place the same night that the show left off. I'm working on the next installment, but it won't be done by tonight, and I figured that putting something up before the new episodes started was better than nothing. So...there you have it.**

Meredith could put away food. She didn't care _what_ she ate, it seemed, usually fueling her body with grilled cheese and cold pizza and whatever junk food was closest within her reach, often creating combinations that made Derek's stomach turn. The first time he'd taken her out, he'd been impressed with her appetite—both with exactly how much food she could fit in her tiny body, and the fact that she didn't mind if he saw how much she could eat. Addison had always been very particular about what she ate—salads and lean meats and never much of anything, _unless_ she was feeding her emotions, and she'd rarely allowed Derek to bear witness to that. Derek liked that Meredith was a confident enough woman to eat in front of him, that she didn't pretend to eat like a bird for the sake of impressing him.

After observing Rose's candy habit at the hospital, he would have put money on a guess that she ate like Meredith. He would have been very, very wrong. He hadn't meant to bring Rose here for their first date…if he was admitting that this was a date. It was a convenient restaurant, a block from the hospital, but he'd been here before with Meredith, and bringing another woman here felt like a betrayal. Maybe it wasn't the place so much as the "other woman" part that made him feel like he was cheating on Meredith. He tried to push the thought of her out of his head—they were broken up. It was over, officially, for good this time. He'd regretted the fight soon after it happened, thought that maybe they could talk and move past it, but she wouldn't even look at him after that, and so he knew. It was done. This thing with them was finished. And so he'd done the first thing that popped into his head, and now here he sat with Rose.

When he'd eaten here with Meredith, she'd eaten all of her steak _and _a fourth of his. Rose had ordered a salad, dressing on the side please. She'd blamed her poor appetite, like her shaky voice and hands, on nerves. He watched her over his plate of grilled salmon, studying her while she picked at the green leaves in her bowl. Her eyes were dark—a far cry from the green of Meredith's—and if he looked into them long enough, he could almost make himself believe that they were a warm chocolate brown, instead of cool and devoid of the spark he always managed to find in Meredith's. Something about her smile was off—he couldn't place it, but seeing her smile didn't make him happy the way it did when he finally coaxed one from Meredith. Rose's hair fell in loose waves, nothing as obviously styled as Addison's perfect coiffure, but somehow lacking the natural, unkempt quality that drew his fingers to Meredith's hair like a magnet. She dressed simply, like Meredith, he observed. She'd met him in the hospital lobby after work in jeans and a simple green sweater. The diamond ring dangled from the chain around her neck, drawing his eyes—not by accident, he was sure—down the V in her sweater.

"Have you ever thought of just putting it in a deposit box?" he asked. Her eyes narrowed in confusion, and he gestured with his fork. "Your ring. You said it was your grandmother's, and you didn't want to lose it. Why didn't you just store it?"

She took a sip of water from the glass in front of her. Meredith would have let him order wine for the two of them; Rose had insisted that she'd be fine with water. "Are you asking about my ring, or do you just want to know why I'm still wearing a reminder of a failed relationship even if it does have greater significance?" she retorted.

She was observant, and blunt. He liked that about her, or at least thought he did. "Both," he replied.

"I like having my grandmother's ring with me," she replied, "which is why I don't put it in the bank. It has nothing to do with not being over the guy, if that's what you're thinking."

"Fair enough," Derek shrugged. "So…what happened with the guy? He just wasn't the one for you?"

She snorted and tossed her hair over one shoulder. "'The one?' You're kidding, right? You actually believe in that soul mate stuff?"

Derek raised an eyebrow and leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest. "You don't?" he returned.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Please," she scoffed. "I thought you were an intelligent man, Derek. That crap about 'the one' is a fairytale for teenagers and Hollywood and paperback romance novels. Are you honestly telling me that you believe there's only one person meant for you in the entire world?"

"Yes, I do," Derek nodded—and truthfully, he did. He believed in soulmates and true love—always had. His father had always told him that his mother was his one true love, and in the few memories Derek had left of his father, he knew that his father had loved his mother unconditionally. His mother had been a young widow with five young children—if anyone could have benefited from remarriage, it was her—and yet, Kate Shepherd had never dated since the day she was widowed, and still wore her wedding band, over thirty years since her husband's death. Mike Shepherd had been her one; there could be no other.

"So who was your 'one'?" Rose smirked. "Meredith Grey, or your ex-wife?" Derek's mouth fell open, but Rose pressed on before he could speak. "Seriously, Derek—how can you still believe in one person after a failed marriage and another failed relationship?"

"If you don't believe in 'the one', then what are you looking for?" Derek retorted. "You were engaged, I was married. Obviously those relationships didn't work out for some reason—Addison wasn't the one for me."

Rose sighed and dropped her fork with a clatter into her bowl. "It's not a matter of _the_ one, but _a_ one. I think it's a matter of finding _someone_ who's in the same place you are and wants the same things you do right now, and as long as that's compatible, it will work. Face it Derek, if relationships were just about _loving_ someone and thinking they were your destined soul-mate, I'd still be with my ex-fiance, and you'd still be with Meredith Grey—or your ex-wife. It doesn't matter how much you love someone, if you don't want the same things, then what's the point? Does it matter if someone is your 'soulmate' if they're not the person who can make you happiest?"

Derek believed that his soulmate _was_ the person who could make him happiest, but he decided not to fight that battle just now, and tried a different angle. "So what is it that you and your ex didn't see eye to eye on?"

"I wanted to get married and maybe have kids, eventually," she replied. "I'm thirty-five; the biological clock is ticking louder every day. He was fine with getting married, but not so sure about the kids—and since he didn't want to be 'saddled' with them, he wanted me to quit work and stay at home if we ever did have kids. I like my job. I don't want to quit. What about you? What was your problem with Meredith?"

He bristled at the insinuation that something was _wrong_ with Meredith. "I don't want to talk about Meredith."

She tilted her head to the side. "Now that isn't fair. I told you about Greg, and you're not going to share the dirt on you and the illustrious Dr. Grey?"

Derek set his jaw and chose his words carefully. It was becoming harder to see, but he could theoretically like this woman. It wouldn't do to push her away by defending a woman who constantly pushed him away. "Meredith is too recent. I'd hope you can respect that I'm not ready to talk about her and what may or may not have happened with us."

"Fair enough," Rose conceded. "So, Dr. Shepherd. Along with this 'one', are you looking for the white picket fences and the golden retriever and the 2.3 children?"

"No picket fences—and I want children, but it doesn't matter how many," Derek smiled. "And I'm not a fan of golden retrievers. They're nice dogs, but a little too commonplace."

"Oh really? Well then, what would you suggest?" Rose laughed.

"I don't know. My last dog was some sort of terrier mix. He was a great dog—a little challenging sometimes, but completely worth it—one of a kind. I'm not sure another dog could ever quite measure up," he replied thoughtfully. His eyes fell to his hands, twisting in his lap in a nervous gesture he'd picked up from Meredith.

"So you believe in a 'one' dog, too?" Rose asked.

He looked up sharply, but his ire ebbed as he saw the smirk on her face and realized she'd been teasing. "I guess so," he laughed.

"I'm a cat person, myself," Rose offered. "I have one. Macy. You'll have to meet her sometime."

He didn't miss the hint in her voice, but he had no intentions of going home with Rose…Rose…did he even know her last name? He'd hunted down her first name after that day in the OR, but he couldn't recall ever learning her surname. "Cats are too much work," he shook his head. "They're capricious with their affection, come and go when they want. Dogs love you completely and unconditionally."

"Spoken like a true man," Rose replied with an amused smile. She paused for another sip of water before abruptly changing the subject. "So, Dr. Shepherd, do you always go around kissing near-strangers and offering sporadic invitations to dinner, or is it just me?"

His mind was flooded by a sudden tidal wave of sensory details, blurred by scotch—the silky feel of a black dress under his hands, the faint taste of tequila, a hint of a flower he couldn't yet identify, and the warmth of a girl who minutes before had been a stranger in a bar, surrounding him, filling him, overwhelming him. Derek cleared his throat and looked up at Rose, who was nothing, nothing like the woman in those images—and nothing like _her_ was good, wasn't it? "It uh…it's happened on occasion," he admitted. "But I try not to make it a habit."

"Good," Rose nodded. "I'd hate to think I have to start viewing the other nurses as competition and not colleagues."

Derek laughed uneasily. "I wouldn't worry about that. You don't have any competition." He hurried to add, "from the nurses", and hoped she didn't notice the brief pause or the heat that had risen to his face with the memory of his first night with Meredith.

If she did, she didn't seem to let it affect her. "Good," was all she said, spearing another leaf of lettuce with a self-satisfied smile.

Their conversation during the rest of dinner was much less volatile. They talked about work, patients, his surgeries that she'd scrubbed in on, and some she hadn't. She asked about his practice in New York, and he learned that she'd gone into nursing after her college roommate had been diagnosed with leukemia. She had an older brother, and made a valiant effort at trying to process the names of all Derek's nieces and nephews—something he couldn't remember Meredith ever quite mastering (though she _did_ know all of his sisters' names _and_ their birth order.)

When he suggested dessert, he eagerly recommended the cheesecake, and stopped himself just before mentioning how much Meredith loved it. Rose declined to take him up on his offer, but suggested coffee at her place instead, which made it his turn to smile weakly and defer to "another time, maybe." When their server brought the check, she had placed her debit card on the table before he could reach for his wallet, but he insisted on paying and gave her card back, which gave him a split-second to steal a glance at the name on the card. Davis. Her last name was Davis. Rose Davis.

They made more small talk in the car on the way back to the hospital, where he walked her to her car. It was, after all, dark outside, and the gentlemanly thing to do. She'd stopped at her car, turned to face him, and swayed nervously in the awkward moment when he simultaneously realized that she wanted him to kiss her, and that he didn't want to. She started stammering something about an early shift at the same time that he coughed and offered a half-hearted "I'll call you…or, see you at work tomorrow."

"Right. Tomorrow. Thanks, um, for dinner," she managed to get out. "I had a good time."

"Me too," he nodded, although he wasn't sure that was true. "Good night." He held her car door open, shut it for her, and watched until she backed out of her parking spot, then waved once as he started back to his own car.

He replayed the night in his head on the way home. All of it. The date with Rose, the chaos surrounding Miranda Bailey's baby, and his fight with Meredith. Mostly his fight with Meredith. _I don't want to lose you…I'm here, wanting you_. It hadn't even been a full 24 hours since she'd stood in front of him and made the biggest leap forward in their relationship she'd attempted in months, and it was over. _I can't do it anymore. Neither can I._

This had been coming for months. _Put me out of my misery_. She'd tried to end it months ago, at the wedding, and he'd done everything he could to keep her from running. Even agreed to that torturous arrangement that let them have sex, but never allowed him to spend the night in her bed and wake up with her in his arms. He'd laid everything on the table for her, and she'd come to his trailer that night showing more fire than he'd seen from her in ages, and promised him to get ready. He'd promised he'd wait, and then…then Rose happened. She intrigued him, and then he'd kissed her…he should have told Meredith about the kiss. He'd told her he would, told her he wouldn't hide another woman from her. He could try to justify, say that he didn't tell Meredith because Rose meant nothing, but he figured that the fact that he'd just taken Rose to dinner meant that it did mean _something_.

But they _had _been seeing other people when he'd kissed her. Meredith could be angry that he hid it, but she didn't have the right to be angry about the kiss itself. He wondered how he'd have felt if he'd known she'd been kissing other men, and knew it would have made his blood boil. No one else should touch her—Meredith was his. _Was_ his. Past tense.

He shouldn't have broken up with her. It was rash, they were angry, he was frustrated with her. She'd finally given him what he wanted—_I don't want to lose you_—and he'd thrown it away. But maybe…maybe it was hard, but for the best anyway. Maybe it was never going to work, and maybe he'd be happy with Rose. _You don't want to build a life with me. You want _someone. _You want someone who wants the same things that you want_. It was what she'd accused him of before, that night she'd driven out to his trailer, and he'd denied it then. But maybe she'd been right even all those months ago, even if neither of them had been able to foresee this turn of events. Maybe he _could_ make a life with Rose.

Maybe, that was, if he could ever stop comparing her to Meredith. She wasn't Meredith. And not Meredith was apparently what he wanted, needed. He kept noticing all the things that made her different from Meredith, and tried to make himself think of them as points in Rose's column, not regrettable deficiencies. Rose was confident. Assertive. Funny sometimes. She seemed much less complicated, and didn't seem to come accessorized with quite so much baggage. Sure, she was a bit more cynical than he was—even Meredith, under it all, was still something of a romantic—but it didn't change the fact that Rose was stable. Sure. She had a good, established job, she had her head on her shoulders, and she knew what she wanted—and that included marriage, and kids. And that? That was what Derek wanted, wasn't it?

As he pulled up to his trailer, he remembered that he and Meredith had planned for her to come over tonight. He wasn't sure why it hurt so badly to see the chairs on the porch empty; it wasn't like he had expected her to turn up anyway, to give them another chance to talk things out, had he? She wouldn't be here again. Richard's sedan was parked next to the second trailer, but the interior lights were blessedly out. Derek scowled into the darkness, suddenly angry for the intrusion onto his land. He knew that he'd agreed to the living situation, but having Richard as a neighbor had turned out to be more than he'd bargained for. He wanted the man gone, back to a hotel, into a house, somewhere, just off his property. It wasn't like Richard _couldn't _afford to live wherever he wanted on his chief-of-surgery salary.

A slender tube rolled across the passenger seat as Derek shifted into park. The house plans. If Meredith had been even remotely excited about them, they might not be broken up. Richard would be on his way out, because Derek would have a reason to evict him. _Meredith and I are building a house together. Taking things to the next step. I'm sure you understand, we want our privacy._ He'd planned it all out. Planned how he'd explain the features of the house he envisioned in intricate detail to Meredith after she'd first seen them. Planned how he'd show her the spot he'd picked out, and how he'd keep her away from the construction until the framework was up and he could walk her through it. Planned picking out paint colors and countertops with her (even though he knew she'd never cook on them), planned shopping for furniture, and moving in. Pictured that first morning, waking up in their bedroom and watching her sleep beside him, the sunlight streaming through the eastward-facing window, warming her skin as she lay wrapped in the sheets of their bed. _Their _bed, _their_ room, _their _house. He'd planned it all, and now, it all amounted to nothing.

He stashed the plans in the cabinet above the refrigerator, where he'd hidden them for the months since they'd been drawn up. He hadn't wanted Meredith to see them until he thought she was ready. He'd misjudged that one, too, it seemed. He took a bottle of scotch from the same cabinet, and bitterly thought that he might as well throw the plans away. He'd never live in the house on those papers. Rose would never even see them. He hadn't planned the house for her. It had been for him and Meredith. It wouldn't be the same with anyone else.

As he took the first slow sip of his scotch, relishing the familiar burn as it slid down his throat, he eyed a swatch of blue among the disheveled bed linens across the room. It was one of Meredith's sweaters. She'd worn it over a few nights before, and hadn't been able to find it when she'd left, stumbling over his shoes, her shoes, and pillows scattered on the floor before giving up and promising to find it next time. She'd thought they'd have a next time. Derek placed his scotch on the nightstand as he sank onto the mattress and took Meredith's sweater in his hands, running his fingers over the soft fibers, bringing it to his nose to search out the faintest traces of lavender and Meredith.

This wasn't right. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Meredith should be here with him. He shouldn't be sitting here trying to drink her away like a bad country-western song, clinging to her sweater as the only remaining token of her presence in his life, and trying to talk himself into believing that the dinner he'd just endured with a nurse he'd known less than a week had been anything remotely resembling a good date. He didn't want this. He wanted Meredith.

He fumbled in his pocket and found his cell phone. It was too much to hope for that he'd find a missed call from her, but as he held down the "3" key to speed dial her cell ("2" was her home number), he allowed himself to entertain the faint hope that she'd answer. She'd be angry, but he could handle her angry, especially with a little scotch in him. They'd fight, but he'd fight if it meant making up and not losing her. As the phone rang once, twice, he rehearsed what he'd say to her, everything he needed to tell her, and most importantly, "I love you" and "I'm sorry."

_You've reached Meredith Grey. Sorry I missed your call…_ He knew her voicemail recording by heart, and his spirits sank when his call was directed to voicemail after only two rings. It never went to voicemail before five rings, which meant that she'd seen his name on the display and hit the "end" button. "Mere, it's me," he sighed. "I know…you know that. Meredith, we're making a mistake…_I_ made a mistake. Please…can we talk? Please call me."

He hung up, but even as he tossed the phone aside on the bed and reached for his scotch, he knew she wouldn't return his call. If she'd wanted to talk to him, she would have answered. She was done with him. They were done. He was free—free of the torturous uncertainty of the cat-and-mouse game with Meredith, free to start over with someone who shared his goals in life…someone like Rose. Meredith had put him out of his misery, just like he'd asked her all those months ago. It was what he'd wanted. He'd gotten his way, and so he didn't understand why it all felt so wrong, and why this, more than anything he'd experienced _with_ her, seemed like agony.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: The last chapter spent a lot of time inside Derek's head. Here, we go vacationing in the labyrinth that is Meredith Grey's mind. It twists, it turns, it goes a little bit of everywhere. It's not as eventful as the last two parts, I think, but it's necessary. This is also, by the way, why I didn't want to write a fix-it with new episodes--what happens in the last paragraph is something I'd planned since I started this fic, but they're going that direction with the show too (which is good! It needs to happen!), so...eh. Speaking of new episodes--I'm kind of thrilled with tonight's, mainly because (semi-spoiler) I didn't have to see Rose until 40 minutes into it. So...here's part 3. Part 4 won't be nearly as tedious to write, so it hopefully won't take me a whole week to get up. Also...I hate to be "that" writer...but you know, reviews are fantastic. I really appreciate those I've gotten so far, but I know more than 5 people have read this. Love it, hate it, praise, critique, whatever...just comment :)**

After nearly being blown up by a homemade explosive, a bout of appendicitis and the resulting appendectomy, drowning, and her mother's death, Meredith was pretty certain she'd exhausted her leave time for the remainder of her residency—or at least the calendar year. It didn't stop her from calling in sick the day after she and Derek were through. She was sure she _sounded_ sick enough when she called; she hadn't slept much, but she was proud of herself. She _could_ have been nursing a hell of a hangover if she'd "celebrated her freedom", as Cristina had suggested, with a bottle of tequila at Joe's. As it was, she didn't even want tequila—or Cristina. Getting drunk to get over her breakup seemed childish, and wasn't that ironic—finally acting like a mature, level-headed adult _after_ Derek had started making out with scrub nurses who were probably _more_ than ready to move into his picket fence dreams? Instead, Meredith had spent a little extra time with Bailey and Tuck before going home to mourn in solitude.

If Izzie and Alex were home, she didn't know it. She took a shower, wrapped herself in her bathrobe, and curled up in her bed—on Derek's side, though she wouldn't acknowledge it if she allowed herself to think about it—and stared at the numbers changing on the clock. As the minutes passed, she searched through her mental catalog of hospital employees, trying to decide if she'd ever met Rose. What kind of name was that, anyway? She couldn't think of anyone under the age of eighty named Rose, and certainly not any young, attractive nurses. She wondered how long it had been going on. Derek said they'd kissed once, apparently the night before—but when had it all started? Meredith scrubbed in on a lot of Derek's surgeries, but she usually knew most of the operating team—which meant that Derek and Rose must have met on a different surgery. He'd probably been requesting her for surgeries he knew Meredith wouldn't be assisting on, to keep them away from each other.

She understood now why he'd had that deer-in-the-headlights look when she'd finally told him she wanted him. He'd probably spent all day trying to figure out how to break it to her, how to tell her that he was tired of waiting, that just sex wasn't enough, and he'd found someone who was ready now. And then she'd messed it all up by suddenly coming up with her half of their deal, and he'd needed an out. That was why he'd shown her the house plans. He'd practically admitted as much, that he'd known she'd run when he put the house on the table. He hadn't wanted her to want it; he just wanted to make himself look like the wronged party when she balked. Call her bluff on her promises from the night before. It was just like Derek to make himself out to be the good guy.

She hadn't told him that she'd actually liked the house—the little bit of it she'd seen. She _had_ been scared of it, but by the time she told George about it—only to learn, in turn, about _Rose_—she was slowly warming to the idea of it. At least if she were living with Derek, she wouldn't have to worry about finding her half-naked half-sister wrapped around Alex again. The house—it was daunting and terrifying, but it was almost as though Derek had gotten in her head and extracted her childhood dream home from her imagination and replicated it on those plans. Derek—he was more than she'd imagined for herself, but she hadn't ever imagined that she'd find the fairytale ending and lose it to an ugly stepsister either. That wasn't fair—Rose was probably gorgeous, and from a big Irish family like Derek, and incredibly fertile, and remarkably undamaged. If anyone was the ugly stepsister in the fairytale, it would be Meredith.

What the hell was wrong with her? Why couldn't she do this? Why couldn't she just love him, and let him love her? Why couldn't she trust him? He'd hurt her, more times than she liked to think about, but he'd been there for her, too. He'd left his wife for her. He'd fought with his sister over her. He'd jumped into freaking Elliott Bay and pulled her out of the water and breathed life into her dead body—and when they wouldn't let him save her anymore, he'd tried to keep her mother alive, too. She didn't like to think about that day and the ferry accident and the drowning…but she had to admit, she'd be dead if Derek hadn't jumped in after her. Derek could swim, and he might be physically stronger than her, but the water had been frigid—he could have drowned, too, or at least gotten hypothermia or pneumonia. He risked his life for her—and a man who was willing to chance death for her, that was a man worth trusting, wasn't he? At least he was, until he started kissing nurses when her back was turned. So no—it wasn't just 'what's wrong with Meredith?', but what the hell was wrong with Derek? If he loved her so much, then why, _why_ couldn't he wait for her?

She knew he was tired. He'd been tired since before the sex-only thing had started (and wasn't she regretting _that_ now). He was older than her, he'd been married before, and he knew what he wanted. He had this sort of thing figured out, at least for the most part. And she was younger, and scared, and damaged, and a complete novice at committed relationships. He'd known that getting into this thing with her—he'd _known_ that she'd need time to be ready for the level of commitment that he'd wanted. But he was never willing to really, truly give it to her—he pushed, and pushed, and asked more and more of her, and it left her feeling like nothing was ever secure, that if she didn't dangle a little further over that ledge, he'd leave her. Even when he said he was giving her time, she still felt pressure from him to be someone she wasn't ready to be—or was even sure that she _could_ be. She thought, quite often now, that her relationships with her parents had ruined her for anything resembling functional adult relationships. She hadn't even had real friends until her internship had begun and she'd met Cristina—and lately, she'd been doubting even _that_ friendship.

It had started with Cristina's would-be wedding, when Meredith realized that she was counting on Cristina's happy ending to give her faith in herself and Derek. At the time, it had made sense to her; her parents, the Chief and his wife, Derek and Addison—it seemed like marriages were just a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and unleash a hailstorm of pain and hurt and heartache. If Cristina and Burke could make it work, then maybe Meredith was wrong about marriage as a whole. The wedding ended, she broke up with Derek, and hopped on a plane to Hawaii with Cristina, where she spent two weeks completely miserable, both from the sunburn that blistered her skin the first day on the beach and the constant effort it took to convince herself that she didn't miss Derek and wanted to stick to the breakup when she got back. All it had taken was one kiss in that on-call room and all her hard work was tossed aside; she'd known she couldn't give him up.

It hadn't felt right, though, the sex-only arrangement. She'd known there were problems with it, felt it deeply even if she couldn't quite nail down _exactly _what needed to be fixed. She'd promised to get ready, promised to work on her issues, and she really had tried—but she kept running into a wall somewhere along the way, some obstacle that kept her from completely giving in to Derek and trusting him and just _letting_ herself be with him. Until the day before. Somehow, what she'd known in some level of her subconscious since her drowning had finally clicked after she'd talked with the paramedic's new widow. She'd been given this second chance at life, at a life with Derek, and what was she doing with it? Letting her issues keep her from happiness was stupid—she'd loved Derek enough not to die. She had to stop dwelling on what had happened before, and seize the second chance at happiness that she'd be given. She wasn't sure how, so she'd known it would need to be slowly, but she'd wanted Derek to know that she was in it just like he was.

Or like she'd thought he'd been. Maybe Derek still believed in true love, but it was pretty clear that he no longer believed she was his. He was more into nurses these days. She'd taken too long to get ready, too long to come to her senses, and she'd lost him. Cristina had barely been able to contain her joy, and managed only a weak attempt at passing it off as friendly concern, when she'd heard the news of the breakup. Meredith knew Cristina had never really liked Derek, merely tolerated him for Meredith's sake, but she'd still expected something a little more…supportive…from the person she considered her best friend.

And then…the more she thought about it, she realized that Cristina's support—well-intentioned though it may be—wasn't really so helpful. Meredith had turned to her with her insecurities over her relationship with Derek, tried to ask her advice about Derek's potentially-dating-other-people, and Cristina's response was to prescribe dancing and having herself sleep over in Derek's place. That had clearly helped a _lot_. It seemed so simple now—Meredith couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before—that she should have been talking to _Derek_ about her problems and fears. If she'd told him that she hadn't wanted him to see other people, that morning when she'd first wanted to…God, if she'd told him then, he might have never kissed that nurse.

She sat upright in bed with the sudden, startling realization that she'd slept with him yesterday morning at work. That _ass_. He'd gone from sex with her that morning to making out with a nurse hours later—it didn't matter that it was, he _said_, the only time he'd kissed Rose, he'd practically gone from Meredith's bed to Rose's. And he'd called _her_ a whore. She was fuming when her cell phone vibrated on her nightstand. She reached for it and her stomach flip-flopped at Derek's name on the display. Why the hell was he calling? What could he _possibly_ have to say to her? She didn't intend to find out, and pressed her thumbnail into the "end" button before tossing the phone onto the other side of the bed. She didn't want to hear his voice. She wasn't about to give him the chance to spin some excuse and try to coax her back with pretty words.

She fell asleep sometime after his call—she lost track of how much time had passed—but slept fitfully. Derek refused to stay out of her dreams. When she woke up for the fourth time at 3:00, she called the hospital to tell them that she wouldn't be in for her shift that started in four hours. She opened her eyes for the sixth time at 4:15, and lowered her feet to the floor with a frustrated sigh. Her eyes squeezed shut as she turned on the lamp and light flooded the room.

She fumbled blindly inside her nightstand drawer before giving up and opening her eyes, blinking a few times at the offending brightness. She shoved aside photographs, a bottle of aspirin, an extra toothbrush Derek had left once, and a handful of condoms (glow in the dark—she could hardly remember the last time she'd let Derek use _those_) before finding what she wanted in the very back behind a thin white card. She hadn't wanted Derek to know she had them, and truthfully, she'd never used them. But after she'd drowned and her mother had died, her discharging doctor had prescribed the sleeping pills, "just in case" she needed them. Meredith hated medicating herself. She hated feeling doped up, not in control—but then, when did she _ever_ feel like she was in control of the things that happened in her life? Still, she'd only used the sleeping pills once, after Susan had died and Derek had drifted away—or she'd pushed him, whichever it had been—and then she'd put them right back into the drawer. She probably should have thrown them out, but there was always a chance she'd need them, and right now, tonight, when the image of Derek entangled with faceless nurses kept appearing around every corner in her mind? If ever a time had called for the sleeping pills, this was it.

She swallowed one with a gulp from a glass of water in the bathroom, and returned to bed. Within minutes, she felt the drugs taking effect, and anxiously welcomed the encroaching unconsciousness. She remembered regretting that the other side of the bed was so cold, and then knew nothing until the sound of Izzie's voice outside her bedroom stirred her back to semi-awareness. Peeking through one eye, she saw that she'd gotten all of two hours of sleep. 6:30.

"We're supposed to leave in ten minutes," Izzie was saying. "I haven't seen her all morning."

"So leave her." Meredith recognized Alex's voice and could picture him shrugging indifferently.

"Alex, we can't just leave her," Izzie would be rolling her eyes now. "She has to work—she has surgeries on the board today. I'm going in there." There was a pause, during which Meredith heard the doorknob rattle and thanked whatever had spurned her to lock it the night before. "Damn it, she's locked herself in. Alex, break down the door."

"I'm not breaking down the door," Alex scoffed. "Leave her alone. If she winds up on scut with Bambi and the interns because she's late, that's her problem. It's not our job to save her ass."

"Alex!" Izzie cried. "She's our friend! We should look out for each other—maybe we should call Cristina! Cristina can always get her up."

Meredith groaned and stuffed her head under her pillow. Izzie would _have_ to shut up eventually, surely, and then she could go back to sleep.

She heard Alex's voice next, lowered to almost a growl. "We're not calling Yang. Leave her alone. If you paid attention to anything other than the mess you're in with O'Malley, you'd know that she and Shepherd broke up last night."

Izzie gasped. "McDreamy broke up with her? Alex, we definitely can't leave her now—move out of my way; I'm going to get Cristina."

Meredith rolled her eyes and threw back her blankets as she stood up. She stomped across the bedroom floor and flung the door open to reveal a shocked and guilty Izzie and a bemused Alex. "Would you _please_ just shut up?" she snapped. "Yes, Derek and I are through. No, I'm not okay, and no, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want you to get Cristina, and I've already called into work. I don't want to bake cookies or burn pictures or get drunk, and I don't want to sit around and have you tell me that I'm better off. I just want you to get away from my door and shut up so that I can try to get some sleep. Do you think you can handle that?"

Izzie stared back at her, wide eyed and silent as she nodded frantically. Behind her, Alex was smirking and struggling to contain his laughter. "We'll just…go to work now," Izzie managed to stammer.

"Good," Meredith muttered. She turned her back on them and slammed the door shut before stalking back to bed and resuming her position under her blankets and pillows. She tossed and turned for the next fifteen minutes, trying to find a comfortable position that allowed her to breathe _and_ still smothered out the noises of Izzie and Alex downstairs as they finished getting ready. By the time she heard the front door close and Izzie's car start in the driveway, she'd come to the reluctant realization that she wasn't going to be able to go back to sleep.

She made her way to her bathroom and studied her reflection in the mirror. She looked…well, she looked like she'd gone to bed with wet hair and then not slept all night. Her hair stuck out at every possible angle, and her eyes were red from the lack of sleep, and still a little puffy from a night of crying. She turned on the faucet and splashed some cool water on her face before sighing and starting downstairs.

In the kitchen, she found a full pot of coffee waiting for her, and made a mental note to thank Izzie for leaving it, even though she'd yelled at her. Their grocery stock was low—she'd used the last of the eggs when she'd cooked breakfast yesterday—but she found a box of Derek's Muesli in the cupboards and popped a dry handful in her mouth. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as she crunched on the cereal and washed it down with a sip of coffee. Maybe she should go grocery shopping later, after she woke up a little more. It would be more productive than sitting around moping. Izzie hadn't gone on a cleaning spree lately, and Meredith was pretty sure that the living room still bore the scars of Cristina's dance party a few nights before. Maybe she could clean, too. Anything that wasn't even tangentially related to Derek. At that thought, she eyed the Muesli box she'd just placed on the counter, and pushed it off the side. It landed in the trash can with an oddly satisfying crash.

Coffee mug in hand, Meredith started back upstairs. Shower or bath? Shower would be quicker, but she _did_ have all day. Bath it was. She finished her coffee while the bathtub filled, and a let out a hiss as she lowered herself into the barely-too-hot water. After a minute or two, she'd adjusted to the water and shut her eyes, resting her head against the tub walls as she relished the warmth soothing her muscles. Slowly, she slid down, down until her face was submerged, leaving just her nose above water so she could breathe. Water filled her ears, and everything around her was engulfed in the silence. She hadn't done this in too, too long. Not since—well, probably since Derek had pulled her out of the bath that morning of the ferry incident. He hadn't allowed her more than five minutes in the bath—alone, anyway—since she'd drowned. Damn him. Now he wouldn't stay out of her bath and let her enjoy it in peace. He was everywhere, ruining everything.

She soaked for a while longer, until the water turned tepid and she felt her skin starting to wrinkle. After she'd gotten dressed, she was pleased to discover it was already eight o'clock. She'd successfully killed the first hour that she would have been at work, if work hadn't meant being forced to see Derek and his nurse. Only…another twelve hours to go. She could do this. There was plenty she could do to fill her time. Like…laundry. Her bedroom floor was covered in laundry, and laundry had nothing to do with Derek. Until she found one of his Columbia t-shirts under the bed and a pair of his boxers mixed among her dirty jeans.

Still, she washed them and set them aside in the laundry room, fully intending to give them back to him at some point—whenever she decided to speak to him again. Her own laundry took a full three loads, which she carefully folded and put away before the clock turned ten and she realized she hadn't ever really found anything for breakfast. She made toast with the last two pieces of bread—and managed to burn only the edges (Derek would have been proud of her) and took them to the den with her, where she sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the large box containing her mother's surgical tapes.

Cristina had dragged them out again a few weeks before, one of the nights that Meredith had gone over to Derek's, and when she came home, Meredith hadn't bothered putting them away. The half-way point of her second year of residency was fast approaching, and she knew she'd be at a disadvantage if she didn't choose a specialty soon. She'd planned to watch her mother's tapes sometime, since Cristina had them out anyway, in hopes that she'd be inspired to a choice. One part of her was drawn to general surgery, following in her mother's footsteps like everyone seemed to expect—the first ten tapes in the box were documentation of the first few times her mother had attempted what was now known throughout medical schools as the laparoscopic Grey Method for abdominal surgeries. She could live up to her mother's name in general surgery—she'd scrubbed in on dozens of procedures, had more experience in general than any other field except—neuro. Neuro was where she thought, in her most honest moments, her heart really was, and it had nothing to do with Derek. At least, nothing more than the fact that Derek had been the one to introduce her to the field. _I have a disease for which there is no cure. I think that would be inspiration enough. _Neuro was full of mysteries and challenges and at the end of the day—there were answers still evading the grasp of modern medicine, answers that couldn't save her mother, but could help other people, and she wanted to be a part of that. But neuro at Seattle Grace—that meant Derek.

As she sorted through her mother's tapes, dividing them into stacks based on speciality, then subdivided by procedures in alphabetical order, she briefly considered the logistics of a transfer. Somewhere out of Derek's reach—back to Boston maybe (just like her mother, running to Boston to get away from a man) or Chicago, or maybe Atlanta. Not Atlanta—it got too hot there. Really, she couldn't leave Seattle. It was her home, and the residency program at Seattle Grace was top-notch. She'd be stupid to give up her place, so hard-fought and won, just to get away from Derek. She could work with him; she may not like it, but surely it would get easier in time. He'd marry Rose and she'd be invited to the wedding and the subsequent baby showers and she'd have to fawn over the pictures of their kids that he'd carry in his wallet, but she'd get used to it, get over it, get over him.

But she didn't want to get over him. She'd spent all morning trying not to think about him, but she couldn't avoid him. Not at work, not at home, not in her own head. He was an ass and a pain and he hurt her, but she still loved him, still wanted him. She studied the results of her work—rows of tapes, labeled and organized on the bottom shelves of the bookcase—and sighed as she stood up. Her back cracked as she straightened, and she stretched her arms over her head. The clock, barely visible in the corner of her eye, read noon. She wasn't even hungry—but she was out of ways to distract herself, and so all she had was the overwhelming realization that she still missed Derek.

She found her cell phone under the chair in her room, where it had fallen after she'd kicked it off her bed, and dialed her voicemail. There was only one message, and she knew it would be him. Her stomach flip-flopped at the sound of his voice. _Mere…it's me. I know, you know that. Meredith, we're making a mistake. I made a mistake. Can we talk, please? Please call me._

Meredith flipped her phone shut and curled up in the chair. She stared at the phone in her hand and chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. She shouldn't be tempted to call him back. They'd made it clear, they were tired of each other, it was done. He wanted the nurse. She wanted…well, she didn't know what she wanted, and apparently that was his problem. But he sounded truly sorry…and if there was a chance…maybe she should call him. He was an ass and she hated him sometimes, but she wanted him still, and maybe…maybe this was it. She could sit at the house and pout and mope, or she could make a huge step and fight for him, fight for _them_—and wasn't it worth that? Didn't she love him enough to give him at least that—a call, to see what he had to say?"

She opened the phone to call him, before she lost the nerve or talked herself out of it, but before she could touch a button, it vibrated in her hand with an incoming call. Cristina's name appeared on the display, and Meredith accepted the call.

"I really hope you're not at home having a pity party," Cristina's voice emanated from the phone, loud enough that she might have been sitting on Meredith's bed.

"I'm not—" Meredith started.

"Good," Cristina interrupted, "because I'd hate to have to come over there and drag you out of bed _again_. I think Hahn might finally let me in on her surgery today, and I'd kill you if I missed that because—"

"That's great, Cristina—" Meredith tried again.

"Seriously, though," Cristina continued. "Be glad you're not here. I'd rather be cleaning up vomit and doing enemas again than see this, Meredith."

Meredith wrinkled her forehead in confusion. "What is it?"

"The show McDreamy and that awful nurse are putting on in the cafeteria," Cristina explained. "Have you seen her, Meredith? Someone needs to check Shepherd for a brain tumor; I don't know what he's thinking."

Meredith felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. "He's with her?" she asked weakly. "They're together—at the hospital?"

"They're sitting about four tables over," Cristina said. "She's fawning over him with the goo-goo eyes and he looks like he finds her about as exciting as a rectal exam. It's pathetic, really—and absolutely hilarious."

Derek was with Rose. In the hospital. In the cafeteria. Where everyone could see them; if the entire hospital hadn't heard about their fight the night before, he was making sure they knew that Meredith was out and Rose was in. At this moment, they were having lunch together at the hospital. Meredith felt sick. "Cristina—I—I need to go. Someone's at the door—"

"Fine, I'll—" Meredith never heard what Cristina was about to say. Her phone fell to the floor with a soft thud as Meredith drew her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly. She'd almost called him to give him another chance. She'd believed him, believed what he'd said in that voicemail—believed there was a chance. Apparently, after a good night's sleep, he'd decided that Rose wasn't such a mistake after all. They were publicly together in the hospital. And she was at home. Alone.

She'd have to see them together at the hospital tomorrow. She couldn't avoid it. She wanted him. She didn't want to, but damn it, she still wanted him, and now she'd have to see him with someone else. She'd have to work with him—them—and pretend like it didn't kill her inside every time he looked at that nurse the way he used to look at her. They were really done. The last year and a half of her life—everything they'd been through—it was over. He'd really moved on. And she couldn't. She couldn't move on from him, from her mother, from her father…she couldn't move on from any of it.

She let herself cry over this new revelation for a few minutes, then stopped to wipe away tears and catch her breath. She couldn't let him do this to her, couldn't have another panic attack over him. Her eyes drifted to the nightstand, and her thoughts immediately went to the bottle stashed at the back of the drawer. She'd sworn she'd never do it, didn't need to resort to it. But now, she knew—it was the only way out. She couldn't move on, couldn't get past Derek, without it. It wouldn't bring Derek back to her, but it would at least be a way out, a way to deal with the pain from _all_ of it. She pulled herself out of the chair and crawled across her bed to the nightstand.

She reached into the back and found it, right next to the bottle of sleeping pills. A simple, thin white card with bold black type. Completely innocuous in appearance, but not at all something Meredith approached lightly. She dialed the number on the card and waited as it rang once, twice.

"Dr. Rachel Hadden's office, this is Beth. How may I help you?"

Meredith cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Hi, um, my name is Meredith Grey. I um, I was wondering if I could set up an appointment with Dr. Hadden. I uh…I've had a lot happen lately that I can't seem to let go of, and I was thinking that maybe Dr. Hadden could help me, well…let go…"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Back to Derek this time. There's a lot going on in his head, too, which is tedious to read and write, but I need him to start thinking in order for plot to start moving--which it will, hopefully, in the next update. Derek and Meredith are both struggling with a lot, and here, Derek figures some things out, but remains clueless as to how to act on his revelations, because...there aren't easy fixes. Knowing what you want and knowing how to get there are different things, and that's where Derek is now. So...read and review. Seriously--not joking about the review thing. It takes 30 seconds of your day to brighten mine. Thanks to those who have, as always.**

A day without Meredith. Derek wasn't used to those. Since his divorce, the longest he'd been without her was the two-week pseudo-honeymoon she'd taken with Cristina, and he had at least _talked_ to her every day since then. If their shifts didn't match, he'd wait in his office for her to come to work just so he could tell her good morning and kiss her before going home to sleep, or she'd catch a nap in an on-call room until his shift started so that she could tell him about the trauma she'd scrubbed in on at 3:00 that morning. They'd always found a way to have a few moments together, so when he arrived at work the day after their breakup, he expected to have to deal with the awkwardness of working with her. She'd already been assigned to two of his four surgeries that day, and since she wasn't speaking to him, he was prepared for an excruciatingly long day. He _wasn't_ prepared for the memo attached to his office door from the department secretary, informing him that Dr. Grey was out for the day, and no other residents were immediately available to take her place on his service.

He wasn't sure what to make of Meredith's absence. On one hand, his day had just gotten much easier. No uncomfortable silences, no tense moments wondering if his hand would brush hers accidentally when he reached for a scalpel, no chance of accidentally forgetting himself and pecking her cheek as they scrubbed in before a surgery. But at the same time, he wanted—_needed_—to see her. She could ignore phone calls and messages, but if he could just _see_ her, _make_ her listen to him—maybe it wouldn't be too late to fix this mess they'd made. Maybe…maybe he'd go by her place after his shift. His surgeries would be over by three in the afternoon; barring any emergency cases, he thought he might even be able to leave a little early. Give them some time to talk before her roommates came home. He was deluding himself, he knew. Meredith had been fine yesterday; she wasn't sick. She wasn't working today because she didn't want to see him. Going to her house wouldn't change that.

He went through his day on autopilot. He was polite, courteous to his patients, but didn't engage with them in the way that had earned him a reputation for excellent bedside manner. He spoke to the colleagues he needed to, filled out the paperwork stacked on his desk in between patients, and performed his surgeries methodically, flawlessly. Three surgeries, three successes, three lives saved. On a normal day, he would have sought out Meredith so that she could share his excitement, but without her, it didn't matter like it should have. He briefly considered holing himself up in his office for lunch, but it was dark and gloomy, and the picture of Meredith he kept by his computer stared at him, taunted him, dared him to put her away, knowing that he couldn't. Lunch in the cafeteria would do him good. There would be light, and noise, and people. People he wouldn't talk to, didn't want to make worthless small talk with, but people just the same. And Derek Shepherd was a personable guy, wasn't he?

He regretted the decision to leave his office within ten minutes. All he'd wanted was to eat his lunch in peace, and then _she'd_ plopped down into the seat across from him, cookie in hand and over-eager smile on her face.

"You look tired," Rose announced. "Out late with a hot date last night?"

He forced a weak smile. "Something like that."

"I um…I really had a good time last night," Rose said.

"Yeah," he nodded. He still wasn't sure what to call last night, but a "good time" wasn't one of his top choices.

Rose hesitated, biting down on her lower lip as though she were unsure whether to proceed. "Maybe we could do it again sometime?" she tried. "Are you free tonight?"

Derek hadn't been paying attention until the very end. "What?" he asked, shaking his head. "Sorry—no, um…I can't tonight."

"Oh," Rose looked a little crestfallen. "Well…another time then. I know this great place—"

Derek tuned her out for the most part, but Rose didn't seem to notice. He chimed in with an "Mmhm" or "yeah" when necessary, but mostly he just wished that she'd go away. He didn't want to have lunch with her. He didn't want to make plans for another date, and he didn't care what her cat had done that morning while she was getting ready for work. He _cared_ that she wasn't Meredith.

Halfway through her story about the baby she'd helped deliver in a crash c-section that morning, Derek stood up abruptly. "I'm sorry," he apologized, meeting her eyes for one of the first times during their one-sided conversation. "I just remembered a phone consultation I have in a few minutes." She nodded slightly and he sighed. She wasn't an awful person; she didn't deserve the way he was acting toward her. "I'll see you later," he offered with a small smile.

It seemed enough to satisfy her. "Okay," she grinned. "Check your calendar for tomorrow. I'm off at six—maybe we can get dinner."

"I'll check," he nodded, knowing that he had no intention of doing so. He'd lock himself in his office for as long as his fake consult should last, and then go into surgery at one-thirty. With any luck, Rose wouldn't be in his operating room. He wasn't being fair to her, he knew. Their date hadn't been awful, and she _was_ a perfectly lovely person, but she wasn't Meredith, and he hadn't adjusted his way of thinking yet when it came to Meredith. Meredith wasn't the standard anymore; Rose was as likely as anyone else to make him happy. He owed her another date, one when he wouldn't spend the entire time thinking about Meredith, when he could really devote his mind to picturing Rose fitting into his hopes and dreams. It didn't matter that Rose didn't believe in true love and the one—she could still be _his_ one, maybe. Meredith didn't _have _to have a monopoly on that title, did she?

He made it through the rest of his first day without Meredith in much the same matter as he'd spent the first half. His last surgery was a textbook procedure, and after rounding on his patients, he retrieved his coat and briefcase from his office and escaped the hospital without being noticed by a certain dark-eyed nurse. Just before he boarded the ferry back to Bainbridge, he called ahead and placed a take-out order at his favorite Chinese restaurant. Chinese food was one of his few indulgences, but Meredith wasn't a fan, so he rarely had the chance to revisit the staple fixtures of his med school cuisine. Right about now, he'd rather have Meredith than all the chow mein he could eat, but since she wasn't an option, he'd seize the opportunity. Still, he wasn't sure it would be the same without her there to wrinkle her nose in disgust and refuse to kiss him until he'd brushed his teeth—twice.

The trailer seemed even lonelier than the night before when he arrived home. Richard had been in surgery when Derek had left the hospital, so even his generally-unwanted company wouldn't be an option for a few more hours. He was left alone, he observed bitterly, with only his unfulfilled dreams, and those were no comfort at all. He wanted to eat and go to bed early—after downing a good bit of scotch—but for the second night in a row, the thought of Meredith kept him awake, and dreams of her made the little sleep he got restless.

By the time he arrived at the hospital the next morning, he no longer had any doubt that Rose just wasn't going to work out. For a brief moment, he'd thought that maybe Meredith was right—maybe he didn't want her, just wanted _someone_. That was what Nancy always said, too, that Derek was always with someone just so that he wasn't alone. He'd spent two nights alone now, and that was enough for him to know. It wasn't about someone…it was about _just_ one. If it was about not being alone, he would have taken Rose up on her offer to go back to her place. Maybe once it had been that way, maybe this whole thing with Meredith had started because he didn't know how to be alone after an eleven-year marriage, but now…now it wasn't. Now it was about being with the woman he loved, and that wasn't Rose. It couldn't be Rose.

He didn't know how to begin fixing things with Meredith…wasn't even sure that they could be fixed. She was supremely damaged, and he was more than partly to blame for that. And kissing another woman—he couldn't even begin to imagine how much he'd hurt her by that, even if they _had_ technically been seeing other people. The arrangement they'd had wasn't going to work; they'd have to figure something else out, because sex-only wasn't cutting it for him, but his need for more was tearing her apart. She had to start trusting him, and he…he needed to convince her that she _could_ trust him. She was so incredibly far from being ready for what he wanted—about a hundred steps, she'd told him—but there was hope for them. There had to be. There had to be some way of getting her back, getting her better, and getting on with their life together. He didn't have the slightest clue how, and that made him feel more helpless than he liked to think about, but if he could just find her, talk to her…he could find a way to make this work. He had to.

He found Bailey in her son's hospital room as soon as he'd changed into his scrubs and had an opportunity to look over his cases for the day. He leaned against the doorframe and watched for a moment as Bailey carefully dressed her son in a soft cotton outfit and laced up his tiny shoes. "I hear Tuck is going home today."

Bailey looked up with a small smile. Her eyes were red, tired, and her face left no doubt that she'd spent nearly every second of the past two days right by that little boy's side. "He is," she said wearily, "but what we're going home to…we're not so sure. But we'll manage, won't we, Tuck?"

Derek frowned. He'd heard the rumors about Bailey's husband and hoped they weren't true; it looked like they were. He thought about offering sympathy, but then again, this _was_ Miranda Bailey. She'd probably glare daggers at him if she knew he was even entertaining the thought that she might need consoling. Miranda Bailey was a Nazi; she didn't do comfort. He decided to get straight to business instead; Bailey would never believe he came by out of concern first. "I know you made the schedule for the residents a month ago, but I need a favor."

Bailey didn't waste a second. "You're not getting Grey today."

"Bailey—" he started.

"Shepherd, you're not getting her," Bailey repeated firmly. "She was assigned to your service yesterday and she called out sick. You and I both know that girl is perfectly healthy—physically anyway. What you've done to her head is another matter, but I'm not going to let you mess with her today by flaunting your new girlfriend in her face—"

"I'm not—she's not my—" Derek stammered. Bailey looked up at him with a raised eyebrow to indicate her waning patience. "Bailey, please. I need to talk to her."

"So talk to her, if she'll let you," Bailey shrugged. "But she's assigned to ortho with Dr. Torres today. She has to make a decision about her specialty soon, and she has yet to fulfill her rotation requirement in ortho; she has _more_ than enough experience with neuro. I can't justify putting her on your service, and I won't put her through that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to finish getting my son ready to be discharged."

He knew when he was defeated, and turned away from the room with a frustrated sigh. His plan—the vague outline that he had anyway—depended on him being able to get her on his service, so that she'd _have_ to listen to him. It was underhanded, maybe, and stood a good chance of making her angry, but it was the best option he'd had. Now, he needed a plan B. He stepped off the elevator on the third floor—Mark should be in his office by now, and he was always good for a scheme. He was still a little reluctant to involve Mark in his personal life—sometimes he caught Mark looking at Meredith, and he never could figure out if there was actually any leering involved, or if he just imagined that Mark was trying to figure out how to take Meredith away from him, too—but like it or not, Mark and Meredith were sort-of friends. If anyone could help Derek get inside Meredith's head and figure out a way to get her back, it would be Mark.

He rounded the corner to Mark's office and froze. There she was, leaning over a patient chart at the nurse's station. Her hair was pulled up in its customary ponytail, but he could tell that she'd worn it straight today. She didn't do that very often anymore, but it had almost always been straight when he'd first met her. She looked…he couldn't tell. Beautiful, always, and tired, definitely tired…but sad? Happy? Indifferent? He didn't know. He came up behind her and gently laid one hand over hers. "Meredith—"

She jumped and pulled away from him as though he'd burned her. Her green eyes, wide with panic, met his and quickly shut him out, narrowing with steely defiance. "Dr. Shepherd," she replied curtly.

"Dr. Shepherd?" he repeated incredulously. "Meredith, don't do this—"

"Dr. Shepherd," she said again, more firmly this time. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask that you don't address me so informally."

His mouth fell open slightly. His eyes darkened as he pressed his lips into a thin line. She wasn't going to make this easy for him. "You really want to do it this way?" he growled. "Fine then, _Dr. Grey_, can I speak to you in my office?"

"I'm sorry, Dr. Shepherd, I'm working with Dr. Torres today," she replied. "She's expecting me for a case--"

"I'm sure she can spare you for a few minutes," Derek said. "I'll let her know that I delayed you—"

"Derek!" a flash of brunette and teal green cut between him and Meredith. "You left without saying goodbye last night! Did you ever check to see if you're free for dinner tonight?"

Derek looked from Rose's enthusiastic grin to Meredith, praying that she'd read the desperate apology in his eyes. Instead, his heart sank; for a second, the wall she'd put up against him fell, and there was no mistaking the pain and betrayal in her eyes.

She swallowed hard, and Derek recognized the beginnings of tears. "If you'll excuse me, Dr. Shepherd," she nodded slightly and turned to run in the other direction.

He turned back to Rose and cleared his throat. "Actually—I'm not free for dinner. My shift runs until eight, but do you think you could meet me for coffee about eight-thirty?"

"Why not make it drinks at Joe's?" Rose suggested.

Derek shook his head. "I'd rather keep it coffee."

"Okay, then," Rose agreed. "I'll…meet you in the lobby at eight-thirty then. It's a date." She flashed him a flirty smile and skipped away down the hall. He rubbed his hands over his face and started back to his office; even Mark couldn't figure out an easy fix for this.

The day felt like it would never end. He had only two surgeries on the board, which were both over quickly. A few consults in the ER, and another patient admitted for surgery the next day. Mostly, Derek had plenty of time to scour the halls for any sign of Meredith, but she had apparently become completely enamored with ortho for the day, and was nowhere to be found. He spent his lunch in the gallery watching her surgery with Callie. She was really going to be an extraordinary surgeon. She hated ortho, but she still operated with the grace and finesse that she'd exhibited in the delicate neurosurgical procedures he'd taught her. She approached bone with a drill and screws the same way she navigated a scalpel among the intricate maze of nerves and blood vessels to repair an aneurysm.

She was incredible, and he couldn't imagine how he'd ever thought he could live without her in his life…or how he was going to convince her to give him another chance…or how to handle her if she did. He still didn't know what to say to her—she still didn't trust him (and now had even more reason not to), still wasn't ready, still shut him out from her deepest thoughts and fears. He just knew that in spite of it all, in spite of all the damage, all the issues, all the hurt and frustration, and the mental and emotional exhaustion that came with loving her…he still did. He adored her, so much that it scared him. In the operating room, he wielded the scalpel that meant the difference between life and death for someone, and he felt completely confident in his abilities. In most aspects of his life, he was capable and sure and able to manage his own affairs. But Meredith—loving Meredith involved an intensity that brought him to his knees. He couldn't control how he felt about her, even when loving her meant enduring the worst sort of pain when he couldn't love her the way he wanted to. He was miserable with her, and agonized without her, but when he wasn't…when they were together, and happy…he'd never experienced that kind of joy with anyone else, and it made all the bad parts worth it. There was nothing he wouldn't do to see her smile, make her happy, even if the effort of it was killing him inside—he loved her. It was as complicated and simple as that. He loved her.

It was armed with that knowledge that he met Rose for coffee. He didn't say much to her as they walked to one of the half-dozen coffee shops down the street from the hospital, but once they'd sat down in a secluded booth and Rose had said for the third time how glad she was that they were doing this, he decided to get right to the point.

"Rose…" he started. "I didn't ask you for coffee as a date."

Confusion immediately clouded her features. "You didn't?" she asked hesitantly.

"No," he shook his head. "And I shouldn't have asked you for dinner the other night. I had just broken up with Meredith, and I was angry. I was lashing out at her, and—it wasn't fair to you. I led you on, and I'm sorry."

"But—we kissed, Derek, and…that was a _really _good kiss. There wasn't _nothing_ there—" she protested.

"The kiss was a mistake," he said gently. "Meredith and I weren't exclusive when it happened, but it still shouldn't have happened. It hurt Meredith when she found out, and—I've hurt her enough. I don't want to hurt her anymore."

"I don't understand—are you back together with her?" Rose asked.

"No," Derek admitted. "She…doesn't want anything to do with me right now. But I love her."

"Derek, do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?" she scoffed. "You and Meredith Grey are _done_. There were problems—you had problems the whole hospital knows about. Derek, don't you _want_ a life outside the hospital? You said you wanted kids and a family…how are you going to have that if you refuse to date someone who's clearly interested because it _might_ hurt a woman who won't even talk to you?"

Derek looked into his coffee mug as he gathered his words. "Here's the thing, Rose. The other night at dinner, you said you don't believe in 'the One'. You asked who I thought my one was, and I didn't answer you—it's Meredith. Meredith is it for me, and what that means for my plans, I don't know. I just know that it's not about finding _someone_ for me—you've shown me that. Please don't take that personally. You're…truly a lovely person, Rose, and if was about finding _someone_, then maybe you and I could have a shot. But it's not, not for me anyway. It's always going to be Meredith for me."

"But she's not even _talking_ to you, Derek," she pointed out. "I hear the gossip around the hospital. I know she freaked out because you wanted to build a house and that's why you broke up."

"No, we broke up because—well, because of a lot of things, but the final straw was when she found out about you," Derek said. "She said I didn't want her, that I just wanted someone who wanted what I did. And for a few hours, I thought she might be right—but she's not. I want to be with her."

"But she doesn't want to be with you," Rose argued.

"Not right now," Derek smiled softly. "But that's okay. I can wait for her. She's worth it."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I don't usually write this fast. But, I was on a roll today and knocked out ten pages in Word, so here you have part 5, in which I unashamedly employ one of the most cliché scenarios in the world of Grey's fanfiction. This is also different from previous updates in that it includes POV from Derek and Meredith--mainly because I was attached to the opening with Derek, which isn't long enough to stand on its own, and the second half needed to be in Meredith's head. There is some minor movement in this update, which takes place a week after the last one. Also, a note about the dates: the year mentioned is 2006. I know that might sound off, but based on the canon timeline, Meredith's internship started in 2005, so it really is still 2006 in Grey's land. All that said...I was thrilled with the comments I received for the last update...thank you so much. I'm going to be out of town tomorrow, and it would be really, really nice to come home and find an inbox full of review alerts. Please, please be willing to take that 30 seconds to make my day a little brighter.  
**

Derek trudged into the hospital, grateful for the refuge from the torrential downpour outside, with his Styrofoam cup of coffee in hand and joined the queue for the elevator. The stairs would probably be quicker—definitely less crowded—but Derek had hardly slept in a week, and so unnecessary physical exertion was definitely not in the cards for his day. He didn't understand why he wasn't sleeping—it was Meredith, he knew that much—but it didn't make sense. It was late November now, and Meredith hadn't spent the night in his bed since before Cristina's wedding-that-wasn't in the middle of June. He was used to sleeping alone, but in the week since they'd broken up, he'd struggled to get anything remotely resembling a full night's sleep.

It didn't help that she was going out of her way to avoid him at work, either. Bailey was still out on family leave with Tuck, but even going directly to the Chief hadn't helped Derek get Meredith for his service. Mark had had her one day, and Derek had nearly punched him when Mark told him to stay away from her. Some reformed best friend he was turning out to be. He'd seen her in the cafeteria—always surrounded by her friends in a protective circle—and he hadn't braved approaching her after seeing the menacing glares from Cristina Yang. He'd managed to run into her a few times—stalked her at the nurse's station, really—but she wouldn't talk to him, only offer a nod and a polite "Dr. Shepherd" before fleeing as quickly as her legs could carry her. When he was feeling particularly mean-spirited, he blamed it on Rose, who seemed determined to make him reconsider her, and had a knack for popping up with her cheery grin and flirty comments whenever Derek actually had a chance of cornering Meredith—and giving Meredith an opportunity to escape. He knew the truth, though—he'd hurt her badly, and she was protecting herself by staying as far away from him as she could.

He opened the door to his office and saw a thick stack of papers on his desk. Great. Paperwork. Always a wonderful way to start the morning. He laid his briefcase next to the papers and logged into his computer to sort through his email. Mostly junk, but a reminder about a meeting of the department heads with the chief scheduled for that afternoon, and two emails from his sisters. Julie had dropped a note hinting that he should come home for Thanksgiving (_"Mom is looking forward to having the whole family together on Thursday"_) and Nancy had followed it up by forwarding a listing of available air fares. He wondered how long it would take Maggie and Kathleen to gang up on him, too. As he closed out of his email account, his eye caught the corner of Meredith's picture sticking out from underneath the mountain of paperwork.

Derek pulled it free and smiled wistfully, running his thumb over her face fondly before tucking the photo into the corner of his computer screen. He didn't want it to be buried again by some thoughtless courier dropping off his mail. There wasn't much urgent there, either, it seemed. A half-dozen medical journals, a few advertisements for grants—he'd read over them later and decide which, if any—to work up proposals for, copies of case notes from last week's surgeries, a memo regarding changes in the direct deposit process for payroll, and a notice that one of the CT machines was down for repairs. At the bottom of the stack, he found an envelope marked with the hospital seal. Curious, he ripped it open and removed the letter within.

_Derek Shepherd, M.D., F.A.C.S._

_Head of Neurosurgery_

_Seattle Grace Hospital_

_Dr. Shepherd,_

_This letter serves as record that Dr. Meredith Grey, PGY-2, has given notification to the Surgical Residency Director/Chief of Surgery stating her intent to specialize in neurosurgery, effective immediately as of this date, November 20, 2006. As Head of Neurosurgery, primary responsibility for the supervision and completion of Dr. Grey's education and training transfers to you and your department. Although Dr. Grey may now be assigned to neurosurgical cases at your discretion, please note that in order to fulfill the core requirements of our residency program, Dr. Grey must also complete:_

_Two full weeks or 87 hours in orthopedic surgery_

_Five full days or 34 hours in plastic surgery_

_Two full days or 17 hours in obstetrics & gynecology_

_Dr. Grey has logged sufficient hours in the areas of cardiothoracic surgery, neurosurgery, and general surgery to satisfy her obligations in those fields. Dr. Grey is encouraged to finish her rotations as soon as possible so that she may focus her time and attentions more directly on her chosen specialty. As Department Head, please schedule a meeting with Dr. Grey within the week to discuss the changes she will see in her schedule as a result of her specialization, as well as the expectations she must meet as a member of your department. During this meeting, please work with Dr. Grey to devise a plan for the timely fulfillment of her obligations to other services, and forward a copy of that plan to the Chief Resident and Chief of Surgery so that Dr. Grey's work schedule may be adjusted accordingly._

_Congratulations on the addition to your department. Please contact me if you have any questions or require additional information to integrate Dr. Grey into your team._

_Patricia Frank_

_Executive Administrative Assistant to the Chief of Surgery_

_Seattle Grace Hospital_

_CC: Meredith Grey, M.D.; Miranda Bailey, M.D.; Richard Webber, M.D., F.A.C.S._

He let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding and gently laid the letter on his desk. Meredith had chosen neuro. He'd hoped she would, occasionally reminded her how well suited she was for the field, and tried to entice her with unique and interesting cases, even, on occasion, let her perform a procedure she technically shouldn't be ready for—but he'd never actually _told_ her that he wanted her to choose neuro. The last he'd known, she was entertaining the idea, but guilt and mourning for mother had her favoring general surgery, following in her mother's illustrious footsteps. He'd wanted to tell her not to, to remind her that she wasn't Ellis Grey, needed to make her own choices for her own life, but unsolicited career advice hadn't exactly fallen under "sex and mockery." He could hardly contain his pride at her decision, and his heart leapt with the realization that Meredith could now, potentially, be working at his side almost every day.

She couldn't avoid him anymore.

* * *

Therapy hadn't been quite what Meredith had expected. There was no leather couch, no vague blotches of black ink, no bust of Freud on the bookshelf amid psychology journals and copies of the DSM-IV. Her therapist didn't wear dark suits and her hair pulled back into a tight bun, and she didn't stare down at Meredith through wire-rimmed glasses as she asked Meredith to tell about her mother. She _had_ done that though. Asked about Ellis. And Thatcher. Apparently that whole cliché had some basis in fact.

Rachel Hadden was a friendly woman, though, and Meredith liked her, even if she wasn't crazy about therapy as a whole. Dr. Hadden was a little older than Meredith—probably about Derek's age—and she wore her strawberry-blonde hair down, and had offered a genuine, friendly smile when she'd first met Meredith. Their first session—the day after Meredith had first called her office—hadn't been as awful as Meredith expected. Dr. Hadden had simply wanted to know what had led Meredith to seek therapy. Meredith had clammed up at first—she probably should have expected that of herself—but after a few deep breaths and reminding herself how much good avoiding and bottling up her problems had _been_ doing her, she'd finally started talking.

_I have mommy issues. And daddy issues. Commitment issues. _Lots _of abandonment issues. Derek issues. Trust issues. Avoidance. I…I have lots of issues. Really…I'm pretty screwed up…dark and twisty or whatever. I may be more than you bargained for…I don't think you're prepared for this kind of damaged._

_That's okay. You're here. You're asking for help. That's a good sign. You're not avoiding anymore, and that's a step. Let's take this slowly, okay? Why don't we just pick somewhere and start? What's wrong with your mother?_

_She's dead._

She'd only been able to explain the barest details of her childhood—her parents' divorce when she was five, and moving to Boston at six, being raised by a single mother who worked 150 hours a week and didn't have time for a daughter—by the time her first session had ended. They'd met again on Friday and Meredith had slowly, cautiously offered a vague outline of her family life thus far, including her mother's diagnosis with Alzheimer's and finding Thatcher last year and learning about his second family. When their time had expired on Friday, Dr. Hadden had scheduled Meredith for Monday and Friday of the next week, too. She wanted Meredith to spend the weekend gathering her thoughts about her newfound sisters and come in prepared to discuss how she felt about her father's family.

She should have expected to wind up working with Lexie most of Monday, then—just in case she'd forgotten to do her homework for therapy that night. She should kill Cristina, though, for not thinking before begging Callie to take Lexie on the same day that Meredith was slated for ortho. And she _had _been getting along better with Lexie lately, once Lexie had backed off on the sister thing and let Meredith have her space. Really, aside from being a little too eager to please, Lexie wasn't all that bad. And at least Meredith didn't have to pretend to _not_ know that they were sisters, like she had when she'd met Molly. Sometimes, Meredith could even see a little of herself in Lexie—it appeared from her tryst with Alex that Lexie had gotten the sleeping-with-inappropriate-men gene, so at least they had _that_ in common, even if they looked nothing alike. _Molly_ was the Meredith look-alike, the daughter that Thatcher had so easily replaced her with in his Christmas-tree-gathering memories.

Meredith wondered would Dr. Hadden would think about _that_. She'd probably speculate that that was at the root of Meredith's abandonment issues and poor self-esteem. Meredith felt replaceable. Thatcher had replaced her with Molly. Derek replaced her with Rose. She tensed up at the thought of Derek and the nurse; she'd done her best to stay out of his way for the past week, but it seemed like every time she _did_ cross paths with him, Rose was there, like a pit bull guarding her territory. She was somewhat thankful for the other woman's presence though—it made her attempts to convince herself that she didn't still want him a little easier. Why would she want a man who thought she was so easily replaceable? Who couldn't understand how unique and valuable she was in her own right? She imagined that these were the sort of things Dr. Hadden would tell her, mantras that a well-adjusted therapy graduate would recite for self-affirmation. They sounded good—but she _still_ wanted him, still missed him, no matter what that said about her self-worth.

She was worried about working with him, and spent most of Monday on edge. She'd turned in the paperwork to specialize in neurosurgery on Friday—a positive step forward, she'd thought, taken just for herself—and a copy of the letter notifying Derek of her decision had been tucked into her cubby when she arrived at work that day. It was just a matter of time before he tracked her down, and she wouldn't be able to deny him the chance to talk to her—and she was afraid that Derek wouldn't keep the conversation about work. His good-guy complex would almost certainly make him ask how she was doing, and she was afraid of how she'd answer. Afraid that she'd tell him the truth.

That was the one good thing about working ortho so much lately—it kept her well away from Derek. She'd feared a trauma case, some high school athlete with a broken limb and a concussion, that might make her call for a neuro consult, but for the past week it had been smooth sailing with geriatric hip replacements, knee replacements, and shoulder replacements. Thrilling surgeries, no, but definitely ones that eliminated any chance of interacting with Derek—and that was how she preferred things these days.

She only had a few more hours to kill before she was done for the day, and then off to her appointment with Dr. Hadden. Callie had given her a stack of post-op patient charts, so she balanced them on her hip as she hit the button for the elevator and waited. It seemed to take even longer than normal before the silver doors slid open and a half-dozen people streamed out, leaving the elevator empty except…

Her breath hitched in her throat. Derek stood at the back of the elevator, arms crossed over his chest and an unreadable expression in his eyes. The stairs suddenly seemed like a really good option…if she wasn't carrying twenty pounds of charts in her arms. She could do this. It was a thirty-second elevator ride; she could spend thirty seconds with Derek and not do anything inappropriate. She could keep her mouth shut, her eyes on the floor, and she could survive thirty seconds. She released her breath and nodded at him slightly in acknowledgment before turning her back to him and fixing her eyes on the row of numbered buttons above the doors as they slid to a shut.

She felt his eyes on her. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and her body quivered with tension. He was _looking_ at her, damn him. He wasn't allowed to do this anymore, wasn't allowed to make her react like this anymore. She sensed him step up behind her, even though his footsteps made no sound on the floor. He'd done this before, damn it, damn it, he was _so_ close to her, just far enough not to touch, but he was _right there_…right there…

She shuddered when she felt his breath in her hair and pressed her teeth into her lower lip. Damn it, why was the elevator taking so long? She squeezed her eyes shut and prayed for the doors to open on her floor.

"I miss you," he whispered, so close that she could almost feel his lips brush her ear.

Her knees went weak, and when she tried to speak, her voice cracked with an unexpected onslaught of emotion. "Don't—" she started.

"I do, Meredith. I miss you," he murmured.

She blinked back a rogue tear and shook her head as she turned to face him. "Derek, we can't—" her protest was cut short as the elevator was plunged into darkness with a sudden piercing screech.

The elevator jolted violently, sending the charts flying out of her hands and throwing her against Derek. In a split second, he seized her by both arms and held her tightly as the momentum sent them both sprawling to the floor of the elevator. Derek's head hit the floor, hard, but he kept his grip on Meredith and broke her fall. Within seconds, the emergency lights activated, providing dim light for Meredith to see Derek's face, inches from hers. It took another second before she realized that she was lying completely on top of him and gasped. She shoved against his chest and pushed herself off of him, scooting backward to the opposite side of the elevator.

He groaned as he sat up, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. It left his hair disheveled, like it looked sometimes after he'd just woken up from a hard night's sleep. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She shook her head slightly, trying to clear the image of just-woken-up-Derek from her mind, then realized that his expression had quickly turned from concern to fear. "No, I mean--I—yeah. I'm fine," she said quickly. "You caught me. Are…are you okay?"

"Yeah, I think so," he hissed in pain as his hand brushed the back of his head again. "I'm probably going to have a nasty bump, but I'll be fine." He took his cell phone from his pocket and glanced at it. "Good, I have service. Hang on, I'm going to see what's going on." He held it to his ear with his shoulder while he continued to rub his head with the opposite hand. "Yes, this is Dr. Derek Shepherd," he said, abruptly changing his position to hold the phone. "The elevator in the east wing has just stalled somewhere between the third and fourth floor…no, I'm not alone…Dr. Grey, Meredith Grey…how long?...Okay. Thank you."

Meredith watched as he slid the phone back into the pocket of his lab coat. "What is it?"

He looked up at her and frowned. "Power outage. They'll get us out as soon as possible."

Meredith raised her eyes to the ceiling and groaned. "Seriously? You've got to be freaking kidding me."

Derek shrugged. "It's happened before. Remember, last year?"

How could she have forgotten that day? It had been a day not unlike today, stormy and uncharacteristically wet, even for Seattle, but more notably, it was the day she'd single-handedly set the women's rights movement back thirty years. _Pick me, choose me, love me. _She had vivid memories of that day, at least until events later that night when the tequila had blurred a few things together."I remember. Didn't the Chief have the backup generators replaced?"

"Apparently not," Derek sighed. "But maintenance thinks they'll have us out within the hour."

Meredith blanched. No. This was absolutely not happening. "An hour?" she repeated. "Of all the people to get stuck in an elevator with—" she added under her breath.

"I think it's kind of appropriate," Derek mused. She looked up sharply and was grateful that the poor light meant he probably couldn't see the pink rising in her cheeks. She hadn't meant for him to hear her. He just smirked. "It's our thing. Maybe we should take it as a sign."

She shook her head firmly. "Stop it." This was exactly why she hadn't wanted to be around him…she'd known he'd smile at her like that and start _saying_ things and make her _feel_ things, and damn him, he was looking at her with the sad eyes…

"Meredith, please."

She had a horrible track record refusing him when he begged, and when he looked at her like that, his eyes pleading with her, it took everything she had to fight the urge to give in. "Don't, Derek. We can't do this. I can't do this. We broke up. You didn't want me. You have Rose, and I have…I have…" she paused. What did she have? She had a therapist who hadn't even _gotten _to the Derek issues and a half-empty bottle of sleeping pills that weren't doing their job and one of his t-shirts that she'd been wearing to bed for a week. She couldn't tell him any of that, so she sighed and continued, "Well, I'm moving on. We can't go back to the pining after each other in elevators and galleries…"

"I don't have Rose," Derek interrupted.

She wasn't prepared for that at all. "What?"

He shook his head. "Rose. The nurse. I don't have her. I'm not seeing her."

Her heart skipped a beat. He wasn't dating the nurse? He wasn't with anyone? What did that mean—did he still—could they—no. She wasn't letting herself go there. She wasn't going to get burned again. This was the man who'd left her for some random nurse he barely knew—and if that hadn't worked out the way he'd planned, it had nothing to do with her. "That was quick. She wasn't ready for weddings and babies, either?"

She wished that he'd stop looking at her that way. He wouldn't take his eyes off of hers and she could see everything he was thinking. It terrified her. "No," he replied. "She was ready."

"Then what?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

He smiled softly, the smile he'd always used only for her, and admitted, "She wasn't you."

Meredith suddenly couldn't breathe. She needed out, out of this damned metal box, away from Derek, away from his eyes and his smile and everything it made her feel. She couldn't do this, she couldn't. "Derek—" she couldn't even think enough to form words. This couldn't be happening, it couldn't…

"I'm serious, Meredith," he continued. "I was wrong. I don't know what I was thinking—I wasn't thinking, I guess. But I never wanted Rose. It was always you."

She could hear the desperation in his voice, could tell how badly he wanted her to believe what he was telling her. She shook her head defiantly. "It wasn't me when you were making out with scrub nurses behind my back," she accused.

That seemed to work, a little. He frowned, and for the first time, she saw something that might be annoyance in his eyes. "We were seeing other people, Meredith," he said flatly. "You don't get to be angry with me for that."

Good. She'd hit a nerve. She'd rather pick a fight with him than talk feelings; she was good at that. If she could get him angry at her instead, he'd stop saying things and looking at her like that and making her want him. "You didn't tell me!" she snapped. "I found out from George, Derek. _George_. How do you think that made me feel?"

"Like I'd lied to you again. I'm sorry, Meredith. Look, do you want to know everything?" he demanded. "I met her a few weeks ago. The day all those kids from the school bus came in, do you remember? She was in one of my surgeries. I kept seeing her around for the next few days, we talked, and in some…adrenaline rush or something, I kissed her after surgery. Once. One kiss, Meredith. That was a few hours before you asked me to be exclusive. She asked me to dinner the next day, and I told her no, because I thought you and I were taking steps. And then we broke up, and I was mad at you, so I asked her to dinner. And it was awful. I spent the entire night comparing her to you and wishing she was you, and when I got home, I knew I wanted you and I called you."

She didn't want to hear it. Hearing it, knowing it all—it hurt to know what had happened, to be able to picture it rather than just imagine the possibilities—but it also made it harder to hate him. One kiss…one date, and he'd regretted it…wished he were with Meredith…_wanted_ Meredith… "That's crap, Derek, you had lunch with her the next day," she tried, remembering Cristina's phone call. "Don't sit there and tell me you wanted me—"

"She invited herself to lunch with me that day," he explained. "I was practically sleepwalking all day because I couldn't function without you, and I was having lunch and she sat down with me for a few minutes before I couldn't take it and left. You came back to work the next day and wouldn't speak to me, but I knew you were it, Mere. I had coffee with her that night to end it. I told her I only wanted you."

She was desperate for anything now, anything to stay angry with him. "You broke up with me for a woman you'd known for three days? Seriously?"

He crawled across the floor to her, close enough that she didn't have any choice but to meet his eyes. "I didn't break up with you for her," he said gently. "We broke up because we were both frustrated and I was impatient, and you…I don't know. I just know that it was a mistake, Meredith. It was a mistake not to tell you about Rose, and it was a mistake to break up. If I could take it all back I would, but I can't, so all I can do is tell you I was wrong and that I'm sorry."

She backed away retreated further into her corner. Damn him, he wasn't allowed to apologize. He wasn't allowed to make her want to forgive him or give them another chance. She avoided his eyes, and after a few moments, a frown replaced the hope on his face and he returned to his side of the elevator. He brought his legs to his chest and fidgeted with his watch band, keeping his eyes off her while she tried to regain her composure. Eventually, she looked up at him, and for the first time in a week, realized how miserable he looked. He wasn't the Derek she knew, the Derek whose eyes lit up when he saw her. He was broody and sullen and depressed…he was like her. He hadn't moved on, not with the nurse, not with anyone. He was still hurting as much as she was, and they were both to blame for it.

"I'm sorry, too," she offered. For what, she wasn't entirely sure…sorry for their breakup, for not being ready, for not knowing what she wanted soon enough…sorry for hurting him, sorry that he'd hurt her…just…sorry.

He lifted his gaze to hers and smiled sadly. He understood, what she was saying and not saying and what she didn't know _how_ to say, he understood. "I do miss you, Mere."

"Don't," she protested weakly. "Please, Derek. I can't."

"Okay," he murmured.

Meredith was beginning to wonder whether the maintenance staff was intentionally delaying the repair for the entertainment value of trapping the two of them in an elevator together. She couldn't even think straight anymore. Derek missed her. Derek wanted her. The constant pain she'd been in for the last week could be left behind in this elevator if she'd just give him the word, but she _couldn't_ do it. She loved him and she missed him, but she _couldn't_ put herself in a position to be hurt by him again. Even with the nurse out of the picture, even with Derek's valid point that they _hadn't _been exclusive when the nurse happened and his apology, she couldn't do it. She _wanted_ to tell him she missed him, too, that she wasn't functioning either, that she couldn't sleep anymore, that she wanted them to work—but he'd hurt her too many times, and she wasn't sure she could risk it again.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for several long minutes before Derek broke the quiet with a sigh. "I found a letter on my desk this morning saying you'd decided to specialize," he said.

She nodded. Work. She could handle talk about work. "Yeah. I figured it was time to commit to something."

"We're going to be working together a lot now," Derek continued thoughtfully. "Can we at least be civil to each other? I don't want the tension we've been dealing with for the last week, Meredith. I want to be able to talk to you and…damn it, Meredith, I'm tired of calling you Dr. Grey. I know it's more professional sometimes, but…I don't want the next five years to be like that. Can't we just….can't we just be Derek and Meredith?"

"We're not Derek and Meredith anymore," she reminded him. He flinched at her words like she'd slapped him; she hadn't expected such a visceral reaction. "I can be Meredith," she offered, "You can be Derek. But we can't be Derek-and-Meredith."

Before Derek could respond, the lights above them flickered to their full power, and the elevator jolted back to life as quickly as it had stopped. "It looks like we're getting out of here," Derek observed.

"Thank god," Meredith muttered. It wasn't a moment too soon for her sanity. She scrambled to gather the scattered charts as the elevator started moving.

Derek handed one to her. "I'm glad we talked. I, uh…I have a case tomorrow. A nine year old boy with a massive gangliocytoma pressing against his temporal lobe. Do you want in? We don't get too many of them through here—"

Meredith gave him a wary look. This was how things had started before—she wasn't willing to go there again. "I don't want special treatment because of us, Derek."

"It's not," he insisted. "Think of it as a gift, a welcome to the department."

She hesitated for a moment, just long enough for Derek's eyes to find hers and wear down her remaining defenses. "Okay then," she decided. "Yes, I want in."

"Good. I'll see you tomorrow morning in surgery then. Have a good afternoon, Meredith." He flashed her a grin, one of his flirty, mischievous smiles that restored some of the missing spark to his eyes.

The doors slid open to reveal a crowd gathered outside—no doubt waiting to see if she and Derek had any visible wounds or misplaced clothing after their entrapment. Meredith shook her head at Derek's smile, but couldn't stop herself from offering one of her own. "You too, Derek."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: I really fought myself over posting this now. I think I'm still dealing with yesterday's episode and trying to balance that with my writing (beware SPOILERS in the coming sentences): I'm much better today over the Derek/Rose development than I was yesterday. I don't like it, but the more I think about it/read others' thoughts--I think canon-Derek is basically doing what my Derek has already done: realizing that Meredith is always going to be it for him, and as "nice" as Rose is, she won't make him happy. My Derek just...didn't sleep with her to figure it out. I also felt a little better about the direction canon-Meredith's therapy went--because I've been playing the Meredith-is-scared angle here...or I think I have, anyway. I HOPE that Meredith here is coming across as wanting Derek, but just being too afraid to risk being hurt again. Derek...at first I thought Derek was moving too fast in this update, but now--I think it's just a continuation of Derek being who he is. He knows he only wants Meredith, but he's not without problems either, and I think he's still a little impatient with her, and that's behind what happens here. Thank you so much for all your wonderful comments last time (it was great coming home to an inbox full of alerts)--please take that 30 seconds again for me after you read here. I'm not 100 percent happy with this chapter, like I said, so...feedback is much appreciated (I'd really love to hear from all of you who've been so kind as to put me on your alert list, but haven't let me know what you think yet!).**

_We're not Derek and Meredith anymore._

Meredith had no idea how much those words had affected him.

_We're not Derek and Meredith anymore._

_We're not Derek and Addison anymore._ He'd never told Meredith about the night his marriage ended in full detail, so he knew that she hadn't chosen those words on purpose, but the similarities were eerily strong—_too_ strong for his comfort. He imagined that this frightening uncertainty must have been what Addison felt when he'd ended their partnership of fourteen years with those words. _We're not Derek and Addison anymore_.

They'd been Derek and Addison since they'd met in Derek's first year of medical school. He'd been twenty-two, and four years of undergrad with Mark had shaken Derek of his band-geek appearance, taught him the miracles of product to tame his curls, and equipped him with much more confidence when it came to the opposite sex. Nancy was in her second year at Columbia, and had asked Addison to be her roommate after they'd met the previous spring in a gross anatomy class and bonded over their mutual obstetric ambitions. Mark had overheard Nancy on the phone planning Addison's twenty-fourth birthday and invited himself and Derek to the party, and the rest was history. In the years that followed, their family had teasingly credited Jack Daniels as the ultimate matchmaker—by the end of the night, Derek had secured a date with Addison (who had still had a bit of her own band-geek shyness to overcome back then) and Nancy had capitalized on weeks' worth of flirting with another second-year med student, Brad Pearce, who became her husband four years later.

After their first date, Addison and Derek had been inseparable. They'd been in different classes, but managed to spend nearly every minute outside the classroom together, studying together, quizzing each other, spending the night at each other's apartments, and after their first Christmas—just two months into their relationship—Addison had spent every holiday with Derek's family, who had welcomed her into the Shepherd flock immediately. When Addison had graduated a year ahead of Derek, she had accepted a spot in Mt. Sinai's residency program, and they'd gotten married two weeks before her internship started. When Derek graduated the next year, he'd made it into Mt. Sinai, too, and they'd quickly regained their reputation as Derek-and-Addison, the perfectly matched, perfectly happy couple. As their careers had flourished, they'd cultivated friendships with other successful, professional couples: Sam and Naomi, Savannah and Weiss…Mark and Girl-of-the-Week…but even if Weiss showed up for drinks without Savvy or Sam's late shift kept him from accompanying Naomi to dinner, Addison-and-Derek were always, always together.

The last few years before the divorce had been tougher. They'd made it through their residencies and two demanding fellowship programs, but once they had established their own practices—when everything should have fallen in line—they'd started drifting apart. They'd worked more, spent less time together; Derek had talked about having a baby, Addison hadn't been ready. They'd both started working more after they disagreed about the baby, and in hindsight he recognized that that had probably been the impasse for them, the catalyst that set into motion the further dissolution of their marriage. Still, to their friends, and even in their own minds, they had remained Derek-and-Addison until the night that he'd caught her with Mark. After that, everything was shattered. The inseparable couple was permanently broken apart, and the basis of normalcy that had defined the past fourteen years of their lives disintegrated. They were individuals again, cut loose from their moorings and set adrift in the world to redefine themselves, Addison without Derek, Derek without Addison--there was no more _them_. _We're not Derek and Addison anymore_.

He'd barely experienced what it was like to be Derek and Meredith, but he knew that no matter what Meredith said, he wasn't ready to give up on them. They could still be Derek and Meredith, and he'd do whatever it took to get that back. He'd made mistakes with Addison, but he could still fix things with Meredith. Things…things were definitely not irreparably broken with them…after all, she was speaking to him again after their talk the other day in the elevator. And yesterday, she'd scrubbed in with him and stood by his side for hours while he worked to remove a tumor from a little boy's brain. She'd put aside her insistence to hate him for a few hours, and listened to him and talked to him and met his eyes eagerly, allowed him to see her enthusiasm over the surgery and her work. It was just a start—letting him talk to her at work, about work, was hardly inviting him to share in her deepest secrets and intimate thoughts—but for Derek, it was all he needed to start putting a plan into action. He'd hardly slept the night before—again—but this time, he was convinced that it wasn't only the loneliness that kept him up, but the excitement, the hope, that maybe, just maybe it would be one of the last nights he spent without her.

He'd gotten to the office early, and spent the ferry ride rehearsing everything he wanted to say. He thought he had it all worked out, but he was afraid that in the moment, he'd forget one crucial part and mess the whole thing up. She was due in his office at nine-thirty, after she'd gotten to work and rounded on her patients. She wasn't on his service today—damn ortho _again_—but he had her scheduled for a whole hour. If things went like he thought—hoped—they would, they might need longer than that. A quick glance at his watch confirmed the time—nine twenty five—just as he heard a knock on the door.

He looked up eagerly as the door opened slowly, but his smile faded when a regrettably familiar dark-haired nurse appeared on the other side. "Rose!"

"Hi, Derek," she said. He noticed that her voice was shaking; so were her hands. "Look, I know you said you weren't interested, but I couldn't help noticing that you're here, and not home with your family, and I was thinking…you shouldn't be alone on the holidays. I'm having a few friends over for Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night, and I was wondering if you'd like to come?"

He was taken aback, and a little annoyed that she still hadn't accepted the end of whatever they'd been, but he chose his words carefully. "That's…thoughtful, but no."

The hopeful expression on her face turned into a dejected frown. "Oh well…it was worth one more shot, right?" she offered.

Derek studied her for a minute, then sighed as leaned toward her across the desk. "Rose, can I give you some advice? Go call your ex-fiance. Invite him to dinner. See if you can make it work with him. I know you disagreed on some things, but there's this thing called compromising…you do it when you love someone. I think you care more about him than you let on, Rose, and if he means that much to you…don't you think _he_ might be worth one more shot?"

Rose laughed and shook her head. "You are…a hopeless romantic, Derek Shepherd."

"So I've been told," he replied. His watch told him it was now just two minutes until his meeting with Meredith. He couldn't have Rose in here when Meredith showed up. "Listen, I'm sorry, Rose, but I have a meeting due to start any minute—"

She held up her hand and cut him off. "Say no more. I'm gone." She gave him one more smile, and Derek breathed a sigh of relief once she was gone. Maybe she'd leave him alone now, maybe not, but at least Meredith wouldn't have to see her. He remembered the copy of Meredith's work schedule he'd left on his desk, and twisted in his chair to find it; even if he had ulterior motives for their meeting, he _did_ need to sort out the logistics of her education. He was so occupied rustling through the cluttered papers—he _really_ needed to find time to straighten his office—that he didn't hear the second knock on his door.

Her voice startled him so severely that he nearly jumped out of his chair. "I see your nurse just left."

In the second before he turned back to face her, his mind raced with possible responses. What had her voice sounded like? Upset? Teasing? Indifferent? Should he launch into the apology? Ignore it? Brush it off like it didn't matter. She, Rose, didn't matter. "My stalker, you mean? Don't let it worry you."

Meredith stepped inside and shut the door behind her. "I'm not worried," she replied simply.

He hadn't been prepared for that. What did that mean? I'm not worried because I don't want you? I'm not worried because I know you want me? "Oh really?" he asked. "And why is that?"

She shrugged. "We're not together. She's not a threat to me."

He wasn't sure exactly what that meant either, so he settled for a slight smile and a murmured "Mmm."

Meredith crossed the room to the worn couch by his desk and plopped down, exactly like she'd always done when she came to visit. She looked at him pointedly and crossed her arms over her chest. "Someone delivered flowers to my house yesterday when I got home from work."

Derek forced back a smile until he could gauge her reaction. "Really? That's nice," he said in what he hoped was his most nonchalant voice. He paused a beat before adding, "Who do you think sent them?"

"I wonder," she deadpanned. He snuck a glimpse at her face, hoping it would give away some clue to her feelings about the flowers that her voice hadn't. No luck.

"Maybe you have a secret admirer," he suggested as he flashed an innocent smile at her.

"_Derek_." There was no mistaking her tone now; she wasn't amused, and she wasn't playing along.

"Okay, fine," he gave in. "They were a welcome gift from the department."

"Derek!" she cried. "You gave me a surgery yesterday and said that was my welcome gift. You can't send me flowers, too."

"Fine—no more surgeries for you, then," he agreed, his lips twisting into a smirk. "I'll stick to flowers from now on."

She rolled her eyes, but rewarded him with the tiniest hint of a smile. He was breaking through, just a little. "I'm just glad you had the sense not to send roses."

He winced and looked away. That had been a little harsh…but he probably deserved it. "I would never send you roses--especially after…" He hesitated, sure that his guilt was written on his face. He didn't want to talk about Rose, didn't want Rose on Meredith's mind. "Besides," he continued, keeping his eyes on the copy of an obstetrics journal lying on his desk (Nancy had sent him a copy—it contained her latest article). "Lilies are your favorite."

He wondered if she'd ask how he knew, or if she knew, but would express surprise that he'd remembered. He'd never actually sent her flowers before; he felt bad about that. She deserved someone to send flowers to her for no reason other than to remind her that she was loved, and he resolved to do it for her much more often. The only time he'd ever seen flowers in the house was the week after Ellis's death, when well-wishers and Ellis's old colleagues had sent flowers and sympathy cards despite Meredith's insistence that neither was necessary. She'd been at home that week, too, recovering from her own death, and Derek had stayed with her, out on his own mandatory psychiatric leave. Apparently pulling your girlfriend's dead body out of the Sound qualified as a work-impeding stressor.

She'd slept a lot the first few days. The stress her body had endured, combined with the cocktail of drugs in her system, had left her exhausted, and she'd usually woken up with Derek in the mornings, only to fall asleep again on the couch downstairs after breakfast. Derek had always stayed with her, sitting vigil and watching her sleep, which also meant that he'd often been the one to answer the door when yet another flower delivery arrived.

On the third day, she'd woken up just after he'd put another arrangement on the coffee table.

"_Who was at the door?" she'd mumbled sleepily._

_He'd leaned over and kissed her forehead. "More flowers."_

_She'd frowned and wrinkled her nose. "I don't want them."_

"_I'll put them in the kitchen," he'd offered. It was where he'd been putting all of them—it had appeased Meredith, who didn't want to see them, and Izzie, who had been extolling the virtues of fresh flowers since the first delivery and placing them anywhere she thought Meredith wouldn't notice—to brighten the house, she'd said. Make it more cheery--as though a house with Izzie wasn't already overflowing with cheer. _

_As he'd turned to lift the vase from the coffee table, he'd heard her soft protest of discomfort as she turned to her side. He'd bruised her ribs with the chest compressions, and even the slightest movement was painful for her. "Wait—are those them?"_

"_Yeah," he'd reached for the card and opened it. "They're from the nursing staff at Roseridge. That's nice of them."_

_She'd hummed in agreement. "Leave them. I like them."_

"_You do?"_

"_Mm," she'd nodded. "They're lilies."_

_He'd smiled, thrilled to have learned this new, unexpected piece of her. Trivial, maybe, but after facing the possibility of losing her, he'd made up his mind to memorize as much about her as he could, and flowers were something new. "You like lilies?"_

"_They're my favorite," she'd told him. "And lavender, too."_

_He'd reached to run his fingers through her hair, tucking a few strands behind her ear as he stole another kiss. "I'd never have guessed," he'd teased._

He didn't know why he'd never sent her flowers after that, but he'd remembered what she liked. He hoped she'd be impressed by his memory for the little things, how he held onto the crumbs that she dropped for him. He chanced a glance at her face, and his heart leaped—she was smiling.

"They are," she said. "But Derek—I'm serious. No more flowers. No more favoring me for surgeries. Okay?"

"No," he shook his head firmly. "It's not okay—Meredith, can I talk to you?"

Her entire demeanor shifted, as though she knew what was coming; her eyes widened, and her fingers pressed into her arms until her knuckles turned white. "We said everything the other day, Derek," she started nervously. "There's nothing more—"

"No, there is," he interrupted. He stood up quickly and rounded the desk to take a seat next to her on the couch. "Please, Mere, just hear me out. I need to say this." He paused for a breath and couldn't help but grin as he met her eyes. "Meredith…I'm an imperfect person. You are an imperfect person. I've always known that about you, but somewhere I lost sight of the fact that all those little imperfections were part of what made me fall in love with you in the first place. But I broke you, too, and created all sorts of flaws that weren't there before, or that had healed up until I reopened them. And after we were back together…I didn't want to believe that I could cause so much damage to someone I love so much. I wanted you to be perfect, and when you weren't…I didn't want to admit that it was partly my fault. You don't trust me, and you're not ready for the life I wanted with you…and that's my fault as much as yours. But what I've realized, Mere—and maybe somewhere I've always known it—is that even though you're an imperfect person…you're perfect for me.

"I don't want _someone_, Meredith. I want you, and only you. I…I believe in finding the one, and soulmates, and I _know_ that you're mine. And Meredith--that scares me. Those things that I told you, about building a life with you…I meant them, Mere. I want those things in my life; I've always wanted them, and I always will—but they won't mean anything if they're not with you. I'm not building that house if you're not living in it with me. I'm not getting married again if it's not to you, and you are the only woman I would ever want to have my child. Knowing that I want you more than everything I've ever planned for my life, realizing that I'd give it all up, lose everything, for you--it terrifies me. But I'll do it in a heartbeat, Meredith."

She shook her head desperately; he recognized the flight instinct in her panicked expression. "Derek, don't…don't…" she faltered. "You don't mean that. You deserve to be happy—don't make yourself miserable because you think you still want me—"

"Meredith, you're not listening to me," he said firmly. "I want _you_. If I wanted the house and the kids more, then I'd be with Rose or some other woman. I don't want them as much as I want you. I want that life, Mere. I want you more. If all you can give me is you…then I'll be okay without the rest. I just want to be Derek and Meredith again." He paused and ran a hand back through his hair in frustration. This wasn't going like he'd planned; he was straying from what he'd rehearsed, rambling now, but he couldn't stop until he was sure he'd said it all. "Look, I know…I know it's not going to be easy. I've made a lot of bad choices and there's a lot of damage in our relationship. But it's not too late for us—if we work on it, we can do this. We can be happy together…we can do it right this time."

He stopped and looked into her eyes for the longest minute of his life. For what seemed like the hundredth time in the eighteen months he'd known her, he was laying it all on the table, begging her to let them work, and she had to say yes. His heart pounded against the wall of his chest, his blood rushed in his ears, his breath caught in his lungs. Everything was suspended in time, waiting for one little word—

"No."

Her eyes were filled with tears, threatening to fall as her lower lip quivered, and her voice was so small that for a second he wasn't sure he'd heard her—and then wished he hadn't.

"No?" he repeated, disbelieving. He swallowed hard, trying to hold back tears of his own. This wasn't at all how he'd planned for things to go. "Meredith—please—"

"Derek, I can't," she shook her head and the first tears slid down her cheeks. "You—you're really good at these speeches and coming up with all these perfect things to say, but it's not enough this time, Derek. You've said it before—you've made promises before—and every time you don't keep one, there's an excuse. Addison was your wife. You chose wrong. You can't breathe for me. I choose my friends over you. I'm not ready for the things you want. And every time, I've given us another chance and gotten burned for it. How many times are you going to 'choose wrong', Derek? You've left me for two other women. How am I supposed to have a shred of dignity left if I take you back now because you decided Rose was a bad idea, too? What am I supposed to do if you fall for a radiology tech? Wait it out a few months and then take you back after you chose wrong, then, too?" Her voice was shaking by the time she finished. She looked away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand in a futile effort to dry her tears.

He wanted to reach out for her, make her look at him, but he resisted and set his jaw stubbornly. "I _hate_ that I did this to us, Meredith," he said. His voice was dark, full of the anger he felt at himself and at her. "I _hate_ that it took that mistake with Rose to make me see that you're it for me. I should have known all along—but Meredith, this is it. I'm done. If there was a bit of doubt left in my mind about us—it's gone. Remember, I said I didn't know what I'd do if someone came along who wanted what I did? I know now. You're it. All we have to do now is work it out."

If he had anything going for him in this, it was that he was determined when he set his mind to something, and wouldn't give up easily. If he had anything working against him, it was that she was just as stubborn. "No," she said again.

He pressed his fingertips against both temples and rubbed. "So this is it?" he asked bitterly. "We're just going to let this thing with us end?"

She looked down at her hands, twisting and worrying in her lap. "I don't know," she admitted.

She didn't know. Of course she didn't—because Meredith _never_ knew, never could say what she wanted or commit to a damn thing.

"Meredith, look me in the eye and tell me this is through," he demanded. "Look at me and tell me that you don't love me anymore. Can you do that? Look me in the eye and tell me honestly that there's no chance for us."

She lifted her eyes to meet his, and he held his breath in fear that this would be the one time she listened to him. For a moment, she could only hold his gaze, but then he heard her voice, barely more than a whimper, "I can't."

He exhaled slowly. She couldn't tell him that there wasn't a chance—which meant that there was one. "Then tell me what to do, Meredith," he pleaded. "What do I have to say to get you back? How many times do I have to tell you I'm sorry?"

"I'm tired of you telling me, Derek." He didn't think she'd looked so broken since the fight that had pushed them to this point. "You say one thing but you do another—quit telling me how much I mean to you. Start showing me."

_You keep taking everything on faith. How do you know what's real and what's not?_

_You just do. You know, some people would call this a relationship…_

_Who, who would call it that?"_

_Me, I would._

_And I'm supposed to believe you. Show me something._

"Give you a reason to believe," he finished. They'd been here before; she'd asked him for this before, and he'd failed her. He'd given her favorite books and ice cream and a silver Airstream, and kept Addison hidden away. She'd asked for something to put her faith in, and he'd withheld the very thing that would shatter that faith and their relationship. She was asking again; he couldn't let her down this time, too, but he knew he needed to offer her more than fly-fishing and his mother's maiden name if he was going to earn her trust back.

Something in her eyes changed; she remembered it, too. She nodded. "Yeah."

"I don't have any more secret trailers in the woods, Mere," he said gently. "No more secret wives. What do you want me to show you?"

"I don't know," she shook her head again. "Figure it out. But Derek—this? Taking advantage of being my boss to corner me into talking about us when we're supposed to be discussing my job? This can't happen again."

He knew she was right. He'd known it was wrong since he'd started planning it, but they were finally talking, and even though things hadn't worked out according to plan, she'd given him enough to keep his hope alive, so right or wrong, he wouldn't take it back.

"And we're not back together," Meredith insisted. "Just so we're clear. I haven't given you another chance, and we're not trying again. I've just…acknowledged that I'm not completely opposed to the idea of trying again. One day." She sniffled lightly and brushed away a few remaining tears.

"Okay," he agreed, leaning over and plucking a tissue from the box on his desk to hand to her. "We're not together. I'm trying to woo you again and you're going to make me work for it."

"Yes."

"But we're friends."

"Are we?" she asked as she balled the tissue in her fist.

"Why wouldn't we be?" he replied.

"Because we've tried being just friends before," Meredith reminded him. "It didn't work out so well."

"But we wouldn't be _just_ friends," he argued. "We're friends, and I happen to be making an active effort to win you over. Again. Which means that we can be friends who aren't just friends. We can be flirty friends."

"Fine," she conceded, hurrying to add, " But there will be no benefits to this friendship."

"No more S&M. Got it." He wouldn't complain about the death of the S&M only arrangement. In the long run, he felt, it had done them more harm than good. He liked—loved—sex with Meredith, but if it meant getting her back, he was happy to go a few more weeks without it. "So—as friends? Can I talk you into having dinner with me tomorrow?"

"Seriously?" she laughed, incredulous.

He grinned. "Come on, you can't blame me for trying."

"Why didn't you go home to your family?" He followed her gaze as her eyes sought out the framed picture on his desk, a photo from two years before of Derek with his mother and sisters and their families. They had them taken every year at Christmas, at least until Derek hadn't come home the year before. He hadn't heard the end of that one yet, and knew he wouldn't unless he came home this year. He could still hear Nancy complaining. _I'm fourteen months pregnant in the last picture we have together, Derek. And the twins' first Christmas picture doesn't have you in it._ He knew he needed to go home—Nancy's twins had only been a few months old when he left New York, and he realized with a sharp twist of guilt that his youngest nieces would be two in a few months, and he'd only seen them grow up in pictures. They were his family, and he'd been neglecting them—but they weren't his only family, and he felt like he'd been neglecting _her_ real needs for far too long.

He turned back to Meredith. "Honestly?" he said. "I was hoping you'd say yes today and I'd be with you, being thankful for such a wonderful and forgiving woman."

She quirked an eyebrow and gave him a wry smile. "You're not wasting any time with this wooing thing, are you?"

"Not a second."

"It's not going to be as easy as you think," she warned him.

_I'm still not going out with you._

_You say that now._

"That's okay," he assured her. "I like a challenge…and you, Dr. Grey, have always proven to be quite the handful."

_It's not the chase…you and me. It is not the thrill of the chase. It's not a game._

And it wasn't. It wasn't about the chase. He was tired of chasing her. But if it was just about chasing—he would stop, go after an easier catch—he'd tried that, and it wasn't the same. He knew now, without a doubt, that what he'd felt so many months before was right: Meredith was about something much more than the chase. She _was_ a challenge, and that made chasing her an exhilarating and exhausting experience—but it also meant that the day she stopped running would be that much more rewarding. The day she stopped running—that was when the real thrill would begin, and he had a feeling that that day was growing closer. All he had to do was keep her in sight until then, and do his best to narrow the gap between them.

"We're back to Dr. Grey and Dr. Shepherd now?" she asked.

"Well, it's more professional, and this _is_ a meeting to discuss your career, Dr. Grey," he smirked. "Did you think it was something else?"


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This is a very Meredith-centric chapter. Among other things, I've attempted to write her in therapy, which was an interesting endeavor, considering that my only experience with therapy was in the ninth grade when my mother sent me to a family counselor (apparently it was completely insane that I wanted to live with my dad rather than move 300 miles away with her) and I definitely pulled a Meredith Grey and spent five sessions not talking. I apologize if this is nowhere near what therapy is like in real life. Because I DID have such a hard time writing this chapter, AND it's about 2,000 words longer than previous updates...I'd really love to know what you think :) I appreciate those who've reviewed as always, but seriously...if you've stuck with me for 30,000 words...please take a few seconds to let me know what you think/like/don't like/love/hate/etc. Feedback is incredibly motivating!  
**

Meredith had planned to spend Thanksgiving at the hospital again, just like she had the previous year. She told herself it was because she still didn't do the family and holiday thing, but she couldn't help but wonder if the reason last year had been so tolerable was that she'd spent it with Derek. Sort of. In that awkward, working with your ex-boyfriend who's avoiding his wife by helping you with a patient who won't wind up making it anyway kind of way. Derek wasn't going home this year either, but Addison wasn't around, so she wouldn't be surprised if he worked, too, but she tried to convince herself that he was not even a tiny factor in her decision to spend the holiday at the hospital. In the end, though, it didn't matter whether he was, because the Chief had turned down her request to work; apparently human resources had instituted a new policy prohibiting any employee from working the same holiday in two consecutive years. It had been designed to prevent people from constantly missing holidays with their families, but it had the unfortunate side effect, Meredith thought, of working against those who didn't _have_ families or anything better to do during the holiday season.

So instead of distracting herself with the mishaps and maladies that could _only_ happen on Thanksgiving, she found herself awake at the crack of dawn (as if she'd ever really fallen asleep) and in the kitchen helping Izzie cook dinner. Meredith's culinary skills extended to opening cans of cranberry sauce, which apparently didn't need to happen until just before they ate, but Izzie seemed determine to enlist Meredith's help in preparing complicated dishes like…stuffing, and green bean casserole. Somehow she managed not to burn down the kitchen and ruin Izzie's dinner, and when the doorbell rang at five o'clock, Meredith had just put the finishing touches on her cranberry sauce—emptying the can into one of her grandmother's serving dishes. She brushed her hands on her jeans as she went to answer the door, expecting George or Cristina. Instead, she opened the door to a deliveryman with an elegant vase filled with white lilies and tall stalks of lavender blossoms. She was going to kill Derek—but they _were_ undeniably beautiful, and she was reluctantly a little flattered.

She pocketed the card that had accompanied the flowers before Izzie could see it; the arrangement he'd sent the day before hadn't had a card, and Meredith was perfectly fine with everyone thinking that these had been sent anonymously, too. Derek's name had become taboo in the house over the last two weeks, and Meredith wanted neither sympathy nor lectures from her friends.

"Is that George?" Izzie called from the kitchen.

"No," Meredith replied, burying her nose in the flowers and inhaling the soothing scent slowly.

Izzie appeared in the doorway, hand on her hip. "Are those more flowers? Did they have a card?" she practically squealed with excitement.

"No," Meredith lied. "I don't know who sent them—but aren't they pretty?"

"They're expensive," Izzie noted. "Those flowers won't be in season for another three or four months—someone is spending some serious money on those. You're not going to put them in the dining room, are you?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Meredith said defensively.

"They're beautiful," Izzie said quickly, "but they won't match the decorations. I already put out the red and gold table linens and I made a fall centerpiece from some silk flowers I picked up at the craft store—"

Meredith privately thought that Izzie invested way too much time and energy in this holiday thing. "I'm going to put them in my room," she assured her. "I'll keep my clashing flowers away from your Good Housekeeping spread." She carefully took the flowers upstairs and placed them on her dresser, where she could see them from her bed. In the privacy of her own room, she opened the card to read it. _Just because_. She wasn't exactly sure what he meant by that, but it made her smile anyway.

By the time she made it back downstairs, Alex had made it back home after his shift at the hospital, Cristina'a voice emanated from the kitchen, and the doorbell signaled what must be George's arrival. "I've got it, Iz," Meredith called. She hurried to the front door and opened it to reveal George and—

"Lexie!" her sister's name came out as surprised breath.

"I invited her," George said quickly, obviously anticipating a protest from Meredith.

"I can't stay long," Lexie added, her cheeks flushing pink with nerves. "Molly is here from Portland with Laura, and this is our first holiday without Mom—well, since her birthday, I mean—so we should be with our dad—I mean, your dad, too, of course—_our _dad, all of our dad—but I thought, you know—we should see you, too, because you _are_ our sister even if we're not really close yet, but I thought we were getting along better, and, well—George invited me," she finished weakly.

"It's okay," Meredith said, nodding as she stood aside to let them in. Trying. She was trying here. Lexie was her half-sister, and she was making an effort, and so Meredith…Meredith was trying. "Molly—is she—I mean…how is Laura? I haven't seen her since she left the hospital."

"She's great," Lexie smiled eagerly. "She's really, really doing great. She's crawling everywhere now and starting to pull up on stuff—I haven't seen her since my mom died and she was only like, two months old then and she's gotten _so_ big now. Molly—Molly wanted to come with me, but you know, we thought someone should stay with Dad and since Molly didn't know you were our sister—I mean, she knew you were our sister, but she didn't know _you_ were our sister—until after she and Laura left the hospital, she thought it would be better if I came instead. And George invited me. But Molly wanted me to bring you this—" she reached into her purse and rummaged for a second before she took out something the size of a baseball card and held it out to Meredith.

"It's Laura," Lexie explained, but Meredith had realized that much already. The picture of the baby was almost identical to the photos in her own baby albums, tucked away and gathering dust in the attic—if Molly had looked this much like Meredith as a child, it made Thatcher's mix-up over the picture by the tree a little more understandable—not forgivable, but understandable. "Molly wanted you to have a picture of our niece."

Meredith managed a smile. "Tell her thank you for me," she said. "I'm going to go put it on the mantle for now, so I won't lose it. Izzie is in the kitchen—I think she's ready for us to eat now, since you're here."

When she joined everyone else in the kitchen, Meredith was immediately claimed by Cristina. "Where the hell have you been? I've been stuck in here with Izzie, and she wants me to help arrange things for _presentation_. I don't present food, and do you seriously not have any booze? Did you learn _nothing_ last year?"

"There's wine in the fridge," Meredith replied. "Don't complain to me about Izzie; _I _had to make casseroles all morning, _and_ George brought Lexie."

"Oh poor you," Cristina replied sarcastically. "At least you didn't spend the morning doing grunt work for Hahn just to be allowed to hold a freaking retractor like an _intern_."

"Hey!" Lexie and George said with simultaneous indignation.

"People, let's be _happy_," Izzie suggested. "It's Thanksgiving. We're not supposed to be complaining; we're supposed to be grateful for all the good things happening in our lives."

Meredith wondered if Izzie realized who she was talking to. Good things didn't exactly happen in abundance to the group assembled in her kitchen, especially not in the last year. Cristina had lost a relationship and the professional advancement she'd enjoyed under Burke's mentoring; Izzie herself had dealt with Denny, nearly lost her job, and then there was that mess with George; George had lost his father, gotten married, gotten divorced, and gotten to repeat his intern year; Alex…kept everything to himself, but had surely dealt with his own share of trouble; Lexie had lost her mother. And Meredith…well, Meredith's year of trials was near-legendary.

Izzie seemed to realize her mistake and grabbed a stack of plates. "Let's just eat, okay? We need a guy--Alex, do you want to carve the turkey?"

Alex reached for the knife as George protested, "Hey, I could have done it! I'm a man, too—"

"Yeah, but I know how to cut," Alex said with his characteristic smirk. "When you want someone who knows what they're doing with a knife, you go to a surgeon, Bambi, not an intern."

George faltered, unable to put together a solid come-back, but Alex had served his purpose and broken some of the awkward tension of the situation. By the time they sat down around the dining room table, they had slipped back into their usual routine of teasing and mocking one another, and the holiday didn't seem quite so unbearable anymore.

Lexie stayed for an hour before mentioning hesitantly that she should be leaving for Thanksgiving with her family; George left with her, since she'd been his ride. Izzie had been slightly dejected that they left before dessert, but Cristina's exit didn't surprise her as much. "Cristina just doesn't _get_ holidays," she said as she handed out generous portions of pumpkin pie to Alex and Meredith. Meredith wasn't sure that she got them either, but this one hadn't been awful.

Alex disappeared after he'd finished two helpings of pie, leaving Meredith to help Izzie clean up. It took them the better part of an hour, but eventually, the dishwasher was stuffed full, the counters wiped down, the leftovers put away, and the dining room restored to its normal configuration. Izzie announced that she was going upstairs for a much-needed and deserved shower; Meredith followed her example, stopping first to retrieve the picture of Molly's baby from the fireplace mantle so she could put it in a photo box upstairs.

The flowers from Derek had filled her bedroom with the faint, soothing scent of lavender. She stopped by her dresser and flipped the picture over. An unfamiliar hand—Molly's, she guessed—had written _Laura Grey Thompson, six months, for her Aunt Meredith_. Aunt Meredith. She'd never thought of herself that way before; Laura wasn't her niece the way that Derek's sisters' kids where his nieces. She was sure he was the beloved, favorite uncle who always gave them special treats and played with them and said yes when their mothers said no. She didn't feel like Laura's aunt; she was just…Laura's mother's half-sister, who had only held Laura on a few occasions, and as a doctor, not a family member. She didn't know how to be an aunt, any more than she knew how to be a sister…or a girlfriend.

But Molly had given her a picture of the baby, and Laura heard about her as Aunt Meredith. And Derek was sending her flowers—"just because." It didn't make sense to her, but she took the picture and the florist's card and tucked their corners into the mirror's frame, then took in another deep breath of lavender.

She still slept fitfully that night—she hadn't slept the night through in two weeks—but when she did wake up, it didn't take her quite as long to fall asleep as it had been for the past few nights. She thought it must be the lavender.

Whatever it was, she arrived at the hospital the next morning feeling more rested than she had in a while—not completely back on her game, but not totally exhausted either. She found a note taped to her cubby, telling her to report to the chief's office immediately. She couldn't imagine why he needed to see her, but she changed into her scrubs quickly and started toward his office. On the way, she tried to think of what he could want with her—she hadn't made any mistakes with her patients recently, and she and Derek had just worked out a schedule for the two months that allowed to her to complete her core rotations while spending one day a week on neuro, so it _couldn_'_t _be about that. Lost in her own thoughts, she yelped in surprise when she rounded a corner and nearly ran into a very solid male chest.

"Hey," Derek said softly, a hint of a smile playing on his features. "Where are you off to in such a hurry?"

"I had a note to see the Chief," she explained. She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully for a moment before adding, "I got your flowers yesterday. They're beautiful."

"I'm glad you liked them," he replied.

"But Derek, you have to stop," she said. "My roommates are starting to think I have some creepy stalker obsessed with me—and really, it's too much. I know how much it must be costing you, and it makes me uncomfortable."

"Don't worry about the cost," he told her. "I'm not, and you're worth it anyway. But if it's too much for you, I'll slow down to once a week."

She started to protest, but recognized the teasing sparkle in his eyes and smiled. "I do like them, though, really. Thank you," she said instead.

"You're welcome," he returned. "You're on OB today, right?"

She nodded. "My boss thought I could use the break from ortho."

"Sounds like a pretty nice boss. How was your Thanksgiving?"

She hesitated. She wanted to tell him about Lexie, how she'd welcomed her sister into her home, and about Laura and Molly, and how she didn't know how to be Aunt Meredith. She wanted to tell him how she'd only _almost_ ruined the green bean casserole, and she knew it would make him laugh if she told him how she'd _perfected_ the art of cranberry sauce from a can. "It was…good. Yours?"

"Good," he answered. "Phoned in my appearance to the festivities in Connecticut, got the guilt trip from my sisters for breaking my mother's heart by staying away for so long, and spent the day fishing. I can only think of one thing that would have made it better."

She knew he wanted her to ask what that was, but she also already knew the answer. It was her cue to leave. "I need to go—the Chief—"

"Right," he nodded understandingly. "Have a good day, Dr. Grey."

"You too, Dr. Shepherd." She smiled softly before stepping around him and continuing across the bridge to the Chief's office. Patricia was sitting at her desk outside his office, and looked up as she approached.

"Good morning, Dr. Grey," she said. "Dr. Webber is expecting you; go right in."

Meredith knocked anyway before slowly pushing the door open. She always felt a little like she was going to the principal's office when she had to meet with the Chief. It didn't help that her interactions with him were always tainted with the awkwardness of his history in her life. His comments that he'd once changed her diapers had been weird enough _before_ she realized that he'd had an affair with her mother, and his odd pseudo-fatherly attitude toward her was usually discomforting at best—but after he'd walked in on her and Derek and seen her half-naked, she really preferred to limit their interaction as much as possible.

She cleared her throat to announce her presence. "You wanted to see me, Chief?"

He looked up from the paperwork on his desk. "Ah, Meredith. Come in, please, have a seat."

She carefully lowered herself into the chair in front of his desk. Definitely like seeing the principal. She played with her watch, twisting it around her wrist, clasping it and unclasping it, as she bit her lower lip and waited to hear her fate.

"Meredith, I know your mother was a very private person," he began. Great. He wanted to talk about Ellis—because _she_ wasn't an awkward conversation topic between them at all. "Your mother liked to keep her personal life separated from her work life, and that was why she wanted her final arrangements the way she did. I know that what I'm about to suggest might _seem_ at first to be against what your mother would like, but I ask you to hear me out anyway.

"Your mother was held in the highest regard in our profession. She worked with many of the most prominent physicians in the country, and she had numerous colleagues who admired her work and the woman herself. When she retired and withdrew so suddenly from the public eye, no one really understood why, and when her diagnosis came out after her death—I'm sure you can understand the shock wave that went through the medical community. Of course you did the right thing by respecting her wishes, but I hope you understand that many of those who knew her were disappointed with the lack of opportunity to honor her memory—"

"Dr. Webber, where is this going?" Meredith interrupted.

"Your mother is largely responsible for the reputation of Seattle Grace as one of the foremost medical facilities on the west coast. This is where she pioneered the Grey method, and she was based here for the first of her Harper Avery awards. The board of trustees wants to pay tribute to her legacy and her impact on the hospital by holding a fundraiser in her honor next month."

Meredith's eyes narrowed. She understood now. This had nothing to do with her mother's memory. "I think you mean that people—wealthy, influential people--are looking for a place to make a donation by the end of the year so they can get a break on their taxes, and you want to use my mother's memory to make sure the hospital gets their share of that money."

"Meredith—" he started.

"No," she cut him off. "You knew her—and that you of all people would support this, knowing how much she'd hate it—you would sell her out for a profit—"

"The hospital does anticipate that your mother's influence will increase donations, yes," Webber admitted. "But you should know that there are plans to use a part any funds donated in her name to create a more permanent tribute to her life and work. There's a proposal to establish an endowed research position in her name—to continue her work, Meredith. This is about more than the hospital turning a profit—it's about making sure that your mother isn't forgotten, to ensure her legacy—"

Meredith bolted upright out of her chair. "She _has_ a legacy!" she snapped. "_I'm_ her legacy, and _I_ remember her. She wouldn't want this—"

"Wouldn't she, Meredith?" Webber argued. "Meredith, your mother was an incredible woman, and a gifted surgeon. She was brilliant, and strong, and she _had_ to be if she wanted to be taken seriously. She made her name when there were very few women in the field, and she was proud of that. Ellis wanted to prove herself, wanted her accomplishments recognized—she _wanted _to be the best. I think she'd have _loved_ an event that was all about her."

Meredith shook her head stubbornly. "Not like this. She was proud of her achievements, and you're right, she loved anything that acknowledged what she'd done in her career. But she wouldn't have wanted this—she wouldn't have wanted her work looked at in the context of what the Alzheimer's took from her. She didn't even want people to know about her diagnosis. She made it clear how she wanted her death handled after she was first diagnosed. She told me that she didn't want people to stand around after she was gone talking about what a shame it was that all her intelligence had gone to waste—and that's exactly what you're proposing. She wouldn't have wanted it."

Webber sighed. "I'm afraid it isn't up to you or me, and certainly not up to your mother. The trustees have already decided to go through with it, and the preparations have begun. This meeting was simply to inform you of the plans, and let you know that you are expected to attend."

"No," she refused. "I won't do it."

"Dr. Grey, your attendance will be mandatory," he replied firmly. His expression softened slightly as he continued, "Meredith, you are Ellis Grey's daughter. Her _only_ family. In addition to potential donors, many of your mother's former colleagues will be invited. They'll want to pay their condolences to you, and it wouldn't reflect well on you, or your mother, if you weren't at an event in her honor."

Meredith crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. "Are we finished here?" she asked.

"Yes," Webber nodded. As she turned her back to him and stalked away, he called after her, "Meredith, I hope you change your mind about this. I truly believe your mother would have been honored by this event--"

She didn't bother with a response; by the time he finished his sentence, the door was already slamming shut behind her.

That night at her therapy appointment, she spent the first few minutes of her session in silence, trying to gather her thoughts. Dr. Hadden tapped her pen on her notebook, keeping up a steady staccato that marked the passing seconds, occasionally glancing at the clock upon the wall over Meredith's head.

"Meredith…I understand that there's a lot going on with you, but I can't do anything if you don't talk to me about it," Dr. Hadden prodded gently when Meredith still hadn't talked after five minutes.

Meredith looked up and sighed. "Lexie came to Thanksgiving dinner last night."

Dr. Hadden flipped back a page in her notes, running one finger down the paper to find a mention of Lexie's name. "Lexie—so we're talking abut your half-sisters today?"

"The hospital wants to throw a big party to solicit money from people and call it a tribute to my mother's life," Meredith continued.

"Okay—your mother, then," Dr. Hadden amended. "I take it you're not happy about this party?"

Meredith had shifted her attention to a slight stain on the carpet; she barely heard the therapist's question. She cared about the fundraiser, and she still wasn't sure how she felt about sharing the holiday with Lexie, but neither of those was monopolizing her thoughts like something else was. "Derek has been sending me flowers. He wants to get back together."

Dr. Hadden raised an eyebrow. "Derek. We haven't talked much about Derek. Do you want to start today with him?"

Meredith shook her head. "I don't know. I…don't know." She couldn't stop thinking about him, but talking about him…that was a different story.

"Okay, then let's talk about Derek," Dr. Hadden decided. "We've got to start somewhere. What's happened with Derek since I saw you on Monday?"

"He wants to get back together," Meredith said again. She took a deep breath and continued, "I had to go to his office for a meeting—a work meeting--and he wanted to talk about us. He said he wants me. That he wants us to work. He wanted another chance."

Dr. Hadden scrawled something in her notebook. Meredith thought it was a very therapist-like move. "How do you feel about that?"

"I…didn't exactly tell him no," Meredith admitted after a long pause, quickly adding, "I mean, I told him no. No, for now. But maybe…" she trailed off.

Dr. Hadden sighed and leaned forward in her chair. "Meredith, do you want to be with Derek?"

"I don't know…" Meredith replied. Liar. She knew. She wanted him; she knew she did. She was a liar. Lying, lying liar.

Dr. Hadden knew she was a liar. "Meredith, I think you know."

"Okay," Meredith gave in under the therapist's scrutinizing stare. "I do. I do know…I do want him."

"Now we're getting somewhere," Dr. Hadden said encouragingly. "So you want to be with Derek. He wants to be with you. What's stopping you?"

"I don't know." Those three words were becoming her new "I'm fine"—her go-to phrase when she didn't want to think about or acknowledge the truth.

Unfortunately, Dr. Hadden refused to accept it. "Why did you break up?"

Meredith hesitated—telling the whole story of why they'd broken up, their trust issues that dated back to her drowning and even further to Addison, her own abandonment issues from childhood and Derek's impatience when it came to advancing their relationship—it would take hours. She settled for the short version, the final straw. "There was someone else. Derek…Derek had plans for us, things he wanted for us, and I wasn't ready. I'd told him I'd get ready, but when I found out about her…I thought he'd gotten tired of waiting. We weren't exclusive when he met her, but I found out and we fought—I told him he didn't want me, that he just wanted someone…" She knew she was leaving out the rest. Her inability to trust him. His accusation that she didn't trust anyone, would never trust him. That was probably something she should tell her therapist—but she wasn't sure she could trust her, either.

"But he's not seeing her now, right? That's what you said Monday," Dr. Hadden asked. Meredith nodded. "And he's telling you that he wants you—so I think there must be something else going on to keep you apart. Do you believe him when he tells you that he wants to be with you?"

Meredith thought of how her heart had skipped a beat when he'd said it. _I want you, and only you._ How for a second, she'd felt something like hope again before her fear and her self-preservation instincts had quelled the insurgent optimism. The eager honesty in his eyes as he'd pleaded with her for another shot. "I want to," she said softly. "I _want_ to believe him."

"But you don't."

"I—I want to."

"Meredith, you told me that when you first met Derek, he was still married, and didn't tell you at first. He told you his was divorcing his wife, but then he ended things with you to try to work on his marriage. That must have hurt you very badly." Meredith felt tears prickling her eyes and fought them back. She refused to be reduced to a sobbing mess in therapy; she nodded slightly instead, and Dr. Hadden continued in her soothing tone, "Meredith, I think you want to believe Derek, but you're afraid of being hurt again. Am I right?"

She would not cry. No tears. "I don't know." I don't know, I'm fine. Liar, liar, liar. _I'm scared as hell to want you, but here I am wanting you anyway…_

"I think you do" Dr. Hadden insisted, "but if you're not ready to talk about it, okay. Let me ask you this—do you think you and Derek _can_ work?"

Meredith didn't have to think about that answer; it was a question she'd asked herself dozens—hundreds—of times. "Not—not like this. I—I'm not ready. I have things to work on—things to get over—"

"Meredith, I suspect that Derek is the major driving force behind your decision to see me. Based on the little I know, I'm not convinced that this is a healthy relationship for you to be in," Dr. Hadden confessed, her forehead wrinkling slightly to accompany her worried frown. "I can't stress enough the importance of seeking therapy for your _personal_ well-being, and not for a destructive relationship—"

"It _is_ for me!" Meredith cried. "And our relationship isn't destructive—I am. I mean, Derek's not perfect, and he has things to work on, too, but he knows how to be _happy_. I'm all dark and twisty and…"

_I feel like one of those people who are so freaking miserable that they can't be around normal people. Like I'll infect the happy people._

She realized that she'd said those words a year ago, and they still held true. Nothing had changed. _Everything_ was different, but nothing had changed. She was still poisoning the people around her and ruining any chance she had at functional adulthood because she just…_couldn't_ stop being miserable.

"I don't want to be like this," she continued. "I want to be able to be happy, and I thought I could do it myself—work on my problems myself. And I did what I could, but I need help, and that's why I'm here. It's not just because of Derek—it's me. I'm tired of being so miserable that I sabotage myself in any relationship I have. I love Derek, but I don't know how to let him love me, and I have a half-sister who is a little annoying, but basically a good person and she wants to know me. She wants to be my family, and I can't get to know her because I don't know how to forgive her for just…being born and having our father. Before she died, I tried to drive away my stepmother who was…really pretty fantastic. I have a baby niece and I'm supposed to be her Aunt Meredith and I don't have a clue how to be her aunt. My mother and I barely got along, and now she's dead, and my father—I don't even know…"

_You've managed to alienate everyone else in your life…_

_I don't want my mother to die alone…_

_The apple fell pretty far from the tree, huh?_

"I just…I don't want to be like my mother," she whispered. "I don't want to spend my life alone and die alone, and have no one to miss me."

_I think it's better to have someone, even if it hurts, even if it is the most painful thing you have done, even if it's the most painful thing you've ever had to do. I think it's better to have someone._

"Okay, then let's talk about this," Dr. Hadden prompted. "What do you think is stopping you from forming close relationships with the people in your life?"

Meredith froze. She was exhausted, physically and mentally drained. She couldn't handle thinking about _this_ truth today, but this was the second time Dr. Hadden had tried to draw the reason out of her. She'd worded it differently, tried to make Meredith _think_ it was a different question—Meredith had learned that trick in her psych classes at Dartmouth—so that Meredith would be fooled into admitting that she was terrified of being left again, abandoned like she had been by every major figure in her life. Meredith didn't want to admit it, but she had learned in her previous sessions that Dr. Hadden was nothing if not persistent. "Maybe…I'm afraid," she offered hesitantly, hoping that that would be enough to appease Dr. Hadden for now.

"Maybe?" Dr. Hadden repeated skeptically.

Meredith drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, curling up like a little girl in her chair. "I am afraid," she admitted in a small voice. "I don't want to be hurt again."

Dr. Hadden smiled warmly at the breakthrough and reclined in her chair. "You've been hurt a lot, haven't you?" she asked gently. Meredith nodded weakly. "By Derek?" Another hesitant nod. "But you still want to be with him?"

Meredith looked up and shrugged her shoulders helplessly. "He makes me happy," she murmured. "Even though he's hurt me…he still makes me happy, most of the time. I just…I'm so afraid of being hurt again."

"Does Derek know that? Does he know that's why you don't trust him?" Dr. Hadden asked.

Meredith thought about the fight that had ended it all, when she'd brought up Rose and Addison and blamed her inability to trust on them. He was a brain surgeon—surely he could understand that it was the hurt from being left that connected to the trust issues, even if she hadn't said it in exactly those words? Especially when she'd just told him a few days earlier, too, that she needed something solid to believe in before she could chance their relationship again. He _should_ understand, but Derek _could_ be a little dense sometimes, when his idealism and his dreams shadowed reality—when he didn't _want_ to deal with the truth. She hoped he knew, but she couldn't be sure. "I think he does…maybe."

Dr. Hadden closed her notebook and set it aside with a sigh. She clasped her hands together, lacing her fingers as though to pray, and leaned forward again. "Meredith…if you're going to see any changes, you have to let the people in your life know what you expect from them. _You_ need to know what you need from them to help you establish trust in them. What do you need from people? What do you need from Derek?"

"I…I told him that it's not enough for him to tell me things will be different if we try again. I told him he needs to show me…give me a reason to believe," Meredith replied.

"What is that going to look like?" Dr. Hadden asked harshly.

Meredith recoiled, shaking her head. "I don't know yet." She hadn't thought much about it, hadn't figured out what, exactly, Derek could show her to make them okay. She'd just planned on it buying her some time, keeping him far enough that he couldn't hurt her again, until she figured the rest out.

"Do you think Derek _can_ get your trust back? Do you think you'll ever get to a point that you trust him not to hurt you again?" Dr. Hadden pressed.

"I don't know."

Dr. Hadden's tone changed, becoming something at once both supportive and serious. "Meredith…this is a good step. I feel like you're starting to make some progress. Let me ask you this though: do you believe you _can_ change? That these things we're working on can be fixed, and you won't be…what did you call it…dark and twisty anymore? Do you believe that things are going to get better this time?"

Meredith couldn't answer at first. She'd always been dark and twisty. Scared and damaged. The brooding girl in black with the pink hair; the seven year old whose school counselor sent home notes saying, "Meredith is a bright girl, but she doesn't seem _happy_ and doesn't make many attempts to engage with the other children.". The embarrassment at family reunions. The girl whose favorite form of self-medication involved handsome strangers and copious volumes of tequila. Remarkably screwed up. She couldn't imagine _not_ being dark and twisty. She'd given up on ever being bright and shiny. Except—she hadn't. Being here, allowing this near-stranger to torture her by cutting open her deepest wounds, meant that she hadn't completely lost hope. "Yes." Her voice lacked much confidence, but she'd said it. It was out there now, and she couldn't take it back.

"Why should Derek believe you?" Dr. Hadden challenged. "You've told him before that you'd change, that you'd get better, get ready."

"I—I am—I will this time," Meredith stammered, unnerved by the unexpected affront from the woman she was supposed to be trusting.

"But he's heard it before—" Dr. Hadden accused.

"But I mean it this time—I'm making the effort—I'm in freaking therapy—" Meredith insisted desperately. She didn't have the energy left to fight, and suddenly bailing on the whole therapy thing didn't seem like such a bad idea. She had come to therapy to have things make sense, not to wind up more confused than she'd been when she started, and her therapist suddenly turning on her? That definitely qualified as confusing.

"You are," Dr. Hadden agreed. "But _he_ doesn't know that—so how is he supposed to know that this time will be any different? What I'm trying to get you to see is that based on what you've told me, Derek is trusting that you're going to make good on your promises this time, even though experience would indicate otherwise."

"What's your point?" Meredith asked warily.

"The point is…Meredith, you're absolutely very smart to want to take a break and take your time before committing to a relationship again, and to ask Derek to regain your trust. But I also want you to be prepared for the reality of this situation—"

"Which is what?" She wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"Derek has no way to know that you're getting better, but he's willing to risk being hurt again to give your relationship another chance. I believe you're going to make great strides with our meetings, but whether we're talking about your relationship with Derek or your sisters or your father—whoever—nothing I can tell you, no suggestion I can make, is ever going to make you one-hundred-percent certain that you won't get hurt again," Dr. Hadden explained gently.

"If you keep playing it safe and keeping people at a distance because they _might_ hurt you, you're only going to be denying yourself that happiness you want. If you're not ready right now, that's okay, but you need to be prepared. At some point in this journey, you're going to have to make a leap of faith, even if there's a chance you'll get hurt, to see that you really trust someone. It's not really trust if there's not a risk involved. I know that's frightening…but that's what makes the result worth it."

_Fear means I have something to lose, right? And I don't want to lose you._

Fear meant she had something to lose. It seemed fitting, then, that Meredith left her therapy session terrified. She had to work things out, had to find a way to trust and to move on, because if she couldn't--she had _everything_ to lose.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Okay: three things you need to know going into this update. One, we are now a week after Thanksgiving/the last update. Second, in one of the unpublished "chapters" that goes between one and two, my Meredith has already told Derek about never going trick or treating as a child. Just so it doesn't throw you when it's mentioned later. And c) I will not be around a computer for the next 48 hours or so. I graduate college on Saturday, and will be out of town until late that evening. This means I won't even be able to start typing the next update (it's constantly being written in my head) until Sunday. From Sunday, I have five days before I leave for ten days in a different state (hint: one of the two non-contiguous states). Because the next update is so far into development, it's likely that I'll have one more update, POSSIBLY two, by the time I abandon you for almost two weeks. Now, how do you encourage me to write as much as possible in those five days? Reviews/comments equal major motivation. I loved your reviews last time--they definitely helped me get through this update (it's 1 AM now, I have to be up at 6) so I would have it up before I left town. So...after you're done reading, hit the little button and type out a review? Pretty please? Long reviews are even better. Think of it as your graduation present to me--I'll be super excited if I come home from the ceremony and have an inbox full of review alerts. (Also: I apologize in advance for any typos. I'm usually much more thorough about editing and read through things about ten times before I post, but I stopped at three this time...I'm about to pass out, and 6 AM is looming ever closer.)**

Derek squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger and groaned. He was tired and hungry, he felt a migraine coming on, and he definitely didn't feel like dealing with the woman on the other end of the phone. "Maggie, I just don't feel comfortable committing this early—"

His sister cut him off angrily. "Derek, we're talking about your _family_. You don't _commit_ to us like a dinner date. You've been committed to us since you were born. You've bailed on Thanksgiving for two years in a row now, and you're not going to skip Christmas, too. Nancy is the only one who's seen you in almost two years, Derek. Two _years_."

He'd heard the same arguments from Kathleen when he'd called a week earlier on Thanksgiving. They weren't working any better now. He knew he _should_ go home for Christmas, but it was almost an entire month away, and he was willing to offer every excuse possible to keep from promising to show up. If he allowed himself to think about it, he might acknowledge that he simply wasn't prepared for a Christmas that _wasn't_ the one he'd planned for this year. Eight months before, he'd been looking forward to a first Christmas with Meredith—either in Seattle, or taking her home to meet his family; he hadn't ever decided which. He'd had her gift for months, but now, with twenty-four days to go, it was painfully clear to him that he wouldn't be giving it to her, and that alone put a damper on his Christmas spirit. Christmas without Meredith hadn't been in the cards for him, and he didn't _want_ to form a plan B.

"Maggie, I know, it's just—things are complicated here—"he said evasively.

"Julie had a miscarriage, Derek!" Maggie cried. Derek nearly dropped the phone in shock and fell silent. Satisfied that she'd shut him up, Maggie finished, "A few days ago."

"I didn't know she was pregnant," Derek said softly. Julie was two years older than him, and as the middle child, she'd always felt a little out of place. As a little girl, her illusions of ostracism had centered on little things, like the blonde hair she alone had inherited from their grandmother, but as she grew older, she had become different from her sisters in a much more painful way. For many years, Julie and Derek had shared a bond as the only two siblings without children. She and her husband, Ethan, had tried every fertility treatment possible for ten years with no success, before their miracle baby, Erin, had been born when Julie was thirty-six. Erin was three now, and Derek vaguely remembered an email from Julie months ago, something about starting another round of in vitro.

"She told us on Thanksgiving," Maggie said. "That's why she wanted you to come home so badly, Derek. She wanted to be the one you heard it from. She was about ten weeks along, and her OB had just given her the okay to tell people. They said everything looked fine, but she woke up Wednesday with a fever and cramping; they did a D&C yesterday."

"Damn," Derek breathed. "How is she doing?"

"She's devastated, Derek," Maggie replied, exasperated. "What do you expect? Mom's in the city staying with her, but she's taking it hard, too. Do you understand now, Derek? The family needs to be together for Christmas this year—_all_ of the family. We miss our baby brother, Derek."

He sighed deeply as his sisters glared at him accusingly from the photo on his desk. He missed them, too. He needed to see them, needed to reclaim some normalcy in his life, even as Julie's "normal" had just been turned upside down. "Okay," he gave in; the decision was impulsive, and went against everything he'd felt a minute before, but he knew it was the right one. "Okay. I'll come home. I'll be there for Christmas."

"Good," Maggie's voice left no doubt how pleased she was with herself. Kathleen was the shrink—and the oldest—but Maggie had always been the most persuasive, probably because she was the most persistent. Derek knew that once Maggie reported back to the family, the other girls would never be allowed to forget that _she_ had been the one to finally get Derek to come home. Not even Nancy had managed that, and _she'd_ tracked him across the country. "You'll book your flight today?"

"Yes, Mom," Derek said dryly. He used his free hand to open the web browser on his computer and pulled up a list of available flights. "I'm doing it right now."

"Don't ever call me that again," Maggie warned indignantly. "And make sure you send me your flight details as soon as you have them. Don't make me call you again—I'm on my way to pick the girls up from school, and I hate to drive while I'm on the phone."

"You'll have an email waiting when you get home," Derek promised. "And Maggie…tell Julie I'm sorry."

"Tell her yourself when you come home," Maggie said.

They said goodbye and Derek hung up the phone. He finished booking his flight and printed out the confirmation details before covering his face with his hands and taking a long, slow, deep breath. His sister had lost a baby. Damn. He'd seen her go through countless miscarriages, and every one had been harder and harder on her; he couldn't imagine the pain she must be in. And to make it worse—he hadn't even been there to share in her happiness—short-lived as it had been. Julie had _begged_ him to come home, and he'd convinced himself that he'd been too busy to be bothered with his family. He was a bastard. A pathetic excuse for a brother, and a son.

And apparently, a doctor. He'd lost his patient that morning. It shouldn't have happened. He'd repaired hundreds—maybe thousands—of aneurysms, and they were unpredictable by nature, but that vessel _shouldn't_ have blown. He'd done everything by the book, but ultimately, it hadn't mattered. Three kids were left without their mother, and a man had lost his wife. Derek hated any time he lost a patient—in eleven years, it had never become easier—but today, compounded with the news of Julie's loss, it seemed like part of a cosmic plot to break him down. His other surgeries had been pushed back for emergencies and traumas, which meant that instead of cutting, instead of the relative security and confidence of the OR, Derek was stuck, holed up in his closet of an office with his dark, self-deprecating mood to ponder his failures. He'd failed his patient. Failed his marriage. Failed Meredith. Failed his mother. Failed Julie. Failed, failed, failed.

"Derek?"

He looked up sharply at her voice and swung his head to follow the sound. She hovered in the doorway, shifting her weight from foot to foot nervously. "Can I come in?" Meredith asked. "Or is this a bad time?"

"_Is this a bad time?" she'd asked. It had been a few days after they'd returned to work after her drowning, and Derek had retreated to his office to brood after he'd lost a patient on the table. She'd just gotten out of surgery, too, by the looks of things; her hair was still pulled back and tucked under her scrub cap, and he could smell a faint trace of the lotion she used on her hands after scrubbing out to keep them from drying out._

"_It's never a bad time for you," he'd assured her from his supine position on the couch. He'd stretched out his arms, inviting her into them with a soft smile._

_She'd locked the door behind her, taken off her scrub cap, and slipped off her shoes before joining him. She'd straddled him first, then gingerly stretched out on top of him, resting her head on his shoulder. One arm had snaked around his neck, and she'd shifted slightly to be able to kiss his jaw as the fingers of his free hand—the one that wasn't already gripping her waist possessively—tangled in her hair. "I'm sorry about your patient," she'd murmured against his neck._

_He hadn't bothered asking how she knew; it didn't matter. He'd just kissed her forehead and stroked her side, running his fingertips over her ribs—still sore, still bruised--and breathed her in. Even though she'd just left the chill of the OR, she'd been warm, and he could feel her chest rise and fall against his with every breath she took. And that—that had made everything okay. Knowing that she was there, and alive, and safe and content in his arms...it made him believe that the rest of it would work out, and if it didn't, he still had everything that mattered right there on that couch._

"It's a bad time. I—I'll just go," she stammered, snapping him out of his memories.

"No, no—" he jumped to his feet quickly to stop her. "Sorry—it's just—rough morning. Come in, stay." He needed her to stay; even if she wouldn't let him touch her, much less hold her, just _being_ there gave him a reason for hope. He'd barely seen her in the last few days, and he imagined that it was no coincidence that she'd shown up now, on the worst day all week. Of course she didn't _know_ how much he needed her, but somehow…something had brought her here, when he needed her the most.

She eyed him warily, but stepped inside the office. "Are you sure this is a good time?" she asked again as she settled in the chair across from his desk. "I can come back if you're busy, or—"

"No, no, stay," he insisted, reclaiming his own seat. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little distracted—but you're always welcome here, you know that. What's going on?"

She took a paperclip off his desk and played with it, bending it beyond any recognizable shape. "I um…I need to ask you for a favor."

He raised an eyebrow and reached across the desk to take the mangled clip from her hands. His fingers brushed hers slightly and she flinched at the contact. "Quit destroying my office supplies. Are you asking me as Derek or as your boss?"

"Both?" she offered hopefully. "I need to come in late next Wednesday, but I'm supposed to be with Sloan and he's been…disagreeable lately."

"Hahn is still turning him down," Derek told her. "It's messing with his ego; he turns nasty when he doesn't get his way." The irony of that statement didn't go unnoticed; he knew he could be just as vindictive when he was angry. Pot, kettle, black. Meredith, thankfully, was generous enough not to call him on it—this time.

"Anyway," she continued, "I don't think he'll let me come in late if I just ask him, but if _you_ told him that my schedule had been adjusted…"

"You know that as Derek, I'd be glad to do it, but as your boss, you're going to have to give me a valid reason," Derek replied. "I can't just tell him that I gave you time off because you asked; that's that favoritism thing you're always telling me I can't do."

She bit her lip and answered hesitantly. "I have…a doctor's appointment."

Something about the way she said it unnerved him. Meredith didn't get sick, at least didn't take time off work for it, unless it was serious. As in surgical and near-death serious—and if it was something minor, she wouldn't be this evasive about it. Fear seized his heart in a vice grip and his forehead creased with concern. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Meredith assured him quickly. "It's just…it's…nothing. It's just--I'd had the appointment scheduled for later in the week, but something came up, and they could only fit me in on Wednesday. I'll just need to come in an hour later--"

Derek wasn't comforted by her efforts to downplay her mysterious doctor's visit, but he nodded anyway. "Okay. I'll talk to Mark for you."

"Thanks," she replied. She was quiet for a moment before adding, "You know I don't like to do this—you know I don't ever ask for special treatment—"

"I know, Mere," he said softly. "It's okay. You know…you know if there's anything I can do for you, all you have to do is ask." He _would_ do anything for her. He didn't think she realized that yet. He couldn't blame her if she didn't; he hadn't done the best job of showing her.

She looked down at her hands and spoke so quietly that he barely heard her. "Yeah…"

He was losing her; she was about to go. He needed to keep her here, needed her to stay here with him. His eyes lit on the ecru envelope, inscribed with bold calligraphy, tucked under a stack of charts. "So…how much are you hating this thing they're doing for your mother?" he asked.

It worked; she turned her attention back to him. "You heard about that?"

"Got my invitation Monday," he nodded and tugged the invitation free, holding it up for her inspection. "I was supposed to notify the department that attendance is mandatory, so…consider yourself notified."

Meredith rolled her eyes. "That's how he's doing it," she muttered. At his confused expression, she elaborated, "The Chief—he told me last week about it and, well…that didn't go so well. I refused to go and he said I was required to be there—I guess this is how. Sorry—I didn't realize I was dragging the rest of the department with me."

"It's not just us," Derek assured her. "It's the general surgery department, too." He could understand the senior general surgeons; some of them had studied under or worked with Ellis Grey. He _didn't_ understand why the neurosurgery department was invited. He'd credited it to her Alzheimer's—and thought that was still a stretch—but now it made sense. It was a way to get to Meredith. "I had a feeling you wouldn't be happy about it."

Meredith shook her head and frowned. "She would have hated it, Derek. She didn't want people's pity."

"I know," he said empathically. He could see how badly she was hurting over it, and he wanted nothing more than to hold her, just for a minute. A quick hug, to reassure them both. She'd never allow it now, but she _was_ unhappy, in the way that only Ellis-related things could make her. Derek could make her miserable, he knew that all too well, but when Ellis was bothering her—it took her somewhere deep, dark, somewhere Derek would go to any measure to pull her from, if he knew how. Sometimes he could, but mostly…mostly thinking about Ellis sent Meredith to a place where the foundation of her existence was patently unstable, making it that much more difficult for her to climb out. Derek knew he'd never fully understand it—he'd had a loving, involved mother, the kind who put her kids above all else; he was pretty sure Meredith had never been Ellis's top priority. He didn't understand the relationship Meredith had shared with her mother, but he knew that in despite everything, Meredith had loved her mother fiercely, protectively. She'd fought to fulfill Ellis's wishes in life and death, and for the hospital to plan this event in direct contradiction of Ellis's last requests—it _had_ to be taking its toll on Meredith. And Meredith--Meredith really didn't need another venue to think about how she'd been a disappointment to her mother and her ambitions.

She shouldn't have to be there, shouldn't have to deal with it. Even he couldn't pull strings to get her out of it, but he could try to make it better for her. Try to keep her distracted, as much as he could. "Meredith…" he began slowly, "do you want to go with me?"

"What?" His offer had caught her completely by surprise. Her face turned white, then flushed pink, as she struggled to compose herself and form a solid response, "No—why—why would I want to go with you?"

"I don't know—" he replied, trying not take her sputtered refusal as a personal slight. "Maybe because my invitation is addressed to Derek Shepherd plus one, and you hate being forced to go even more than I do? If we went together, you'd at least have someone to talk to."

"Really?" Meredith tilted her head and her voice took on an incredulous edge. "Are you sure you're not asking me because the _last_ time we were forced into attending a hospital-sponsored function in formal wear, we wound up having sex in an exam room, and you're hoping for a repeat performance?"

He couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his throat. "Hadn't even crossed my mind…but now that you mention it…" he grinned. "Seriously, Meredith. If you go with me, I promise to be a perfect gentleman. I won't even try to feel you up. Scout's honor." He held one hand in the air, palm facing her, to illustrate his point.

She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"What?" he laughed. "I never told you I'm an Eagle Scout?"

"No," she said. Her lips twisted into a smirk as she added, "But it doesn't surprise me."

"I'm full of surprises," he assured her, flashing her a cocky smile. If he didn't know better, he'd almost think she was flirting with him. "What about you? Do you have a stash of Girl Scout badges you never showed me?"

"Please," Meredith scoffed. "Derek, I wasn't allowed to beg strangers for food on Halloween. Do you really think my mother would have let me join an organization that goes around accosting people with solicitations for cookie sales?"

"Good point," he conceded. They were both quiet for a moment; the smile on his face softened as his voice took on a coaxing tone. It was what she'd told him earned him the McDreamy moniker, and if it worked…he had no shame turning on the charm. "Come on, Mere," he pleaded. "Neither of us has a date to this thing, and neither of us really wants to go. We're sitting here having a perfectly enjoyable, functional conversation…I think we could have a good time. Be my date."

She appeared to have developed some immunity to the dreaminess, because she tossed her head with an emphatic, "No!"

He groaned and tried the guilt card. "I just agreed to talk to Mark for you, and you won't do this for me?"

"Two completely different things, Derek," she argued, and he knew she was right.

"Fine," he sighed and paused for a good look at her. It amazed him how just _seeing_ her could make him happier; even now, when she wasn't giving him his way, she put a smile back on his face. "How are your flowers holding up?"

Her face fell and she looked away. "They um…they died a few days ago," she admitted apologetically.

"You should have told me. I'll send you new ones," he offered.

"You don't have to do that," she was quick to protest. He hated that about her. He hated that she didn't know how to accept gestures like that; he knew it was because she thought she didn't deserve them. He hated that he hadn't done a better job of convincing her how worthy she was when he'd the chance.

"I want to." He wanted her to know what she meant to him. Wanted her to know that she deserved them, and more. He wanted it for her. He wanted…a lot for her. For them.

"Fine," she stood up, signaling the end of her participation in the pseudo-agrument. She started for the door, but paused after she laid her hand on the doorknob. He watched her shoulders lift and sink as she took a deep breath before turning back toward him. "Derek…" she wrung her hands awkwardly. "Is everything…okay with you?"

Of all the things she could have said at that moment, there weren't many that would have surprised him more. But then again—it shouldn't be so shocking. Meredith had always been good at reading him—which meant that she'd see through his forced, "Yeah, why?"

"It's just…" she sighed. "When I came in, you seemed…I don't know, upset about something. Distracted."

He looked at her sideways, trying to decide whether he could believe his ears. She was getting _involved_—initiating a conversation that wasn't about work, that actually dealt with feelings and personal lives. She was making an effort. "Yeah…I um, I just got off the phone with my sister Maggie," he confessed. He couldn't brush her off when she was…trying.

"Ah," she nodded understandingly. "The guilt trip?"

"Yeah. I'm going home for Christmas at the end of the month."

She smiled softly. "That's good. I…I know you must miss them a lot."

"I do," he said. He did miss them—and he missed this. Talking to her. Sharing things with her. He didn't want to stop sharing. "My um…my sister Julie just had a miscarriage. That's why I was distracted; I found out right before you came in."

"I'm sorry," she said immediately. The sincerity in her eyes let him know that her sympathy was genuine, not an instinctive response. "Julie…" she began, furrowing her brow in concentration. "Julie is the one that had so much trouble getting pregnant?"

She'd remembered. And she was continuing their conversation. "Yeah. Maggie says she's taking it really hard. She thinks we need to all be together this Christmas, and I think she's right," he said. He shook his head and his voice turned pensive, nostalgic. "I used to love Christmas, Mere. Something about being with the people you love on the holidays…sharing that time with your family…I've been missing that." He looked at her and smiled apologetically. "Sorry—I know you're not big on the holiday thing."

"Lexie came to Thanksgiving dinner last week," she blurted.

"_Really?_ How was that?" he asked, wondering if his surprise carried into his voice. The Meredith he knew avoided her half-sisters like the plague; he couldn't imagine her willingly spending time with one of them, much less enjoying it.

"Not entirely awful," Meredith admitted. "She, um…she brought me a picture of Molly's baby. Apparently I'm Aunt Meredith now."

"I'm glad," he murmured, and he was. "I've told you before, you deserve to have a family. Thatcher may be a worthless human being who doesn't deserve to know you…but your sisters…they can be your family."

"Yeah…I don't know if I'm ever going to figure out the sibling thing, though," she frowned. "At least not like you and your sisters."

"I'm not perfect," he shook his head. "Believe me, right now…with this stuff with Julie…I feel like a pitiful excuse for a brother. You don't ever get it completely right, Mere. You just do the best you can, and keep trying, and everything works out. Families forgive you for mistakes."

She smirked, and he recognized a playful spark in her eyes that he hadn't seen in far too long. "At least you hope so. I'm not sure what they'll do to you when you show up after two years."

He flashed her a flirty grin of his own. "All the more reason you should be my date for this thing next weekend. How would you feel if my family killed me and you never saw me again, and you'd passed up your last chance to go on a date with me?"

"I'll take my chances," she teased him with an indifferent shrug of her shoulders. "And seriously, Derek, do you just recycle the same lines all the time and hope I don't notice?"

"You're being very sassy today," he observed. He liked her sassy—almost as much as he liked her bossy. Not nearly as much as he loved seeing the rare smile that lit up her face. "Especially for someone I've barely seen all week suddenly showing up in my office up wanting favors."

"Well then, it's a good thing I have to go scrub in before I make you take back the favor," she said, reaching behind her back for the door knob again.

"What's the procedure?" he asked quickly. He wasn't ready for her to leave; he knew he had to let her, but this—this had been too good to end. He wanted her to stay, just a little longer.

"Another hip replacement," she rolled her eyes. "The exhilarating world of orthopedics."

"I've got you on Monday; I'll find something good for you," he promised. He'd already had her in mind for his corpus callosotomy, but he wouldn't tell her now. Let her be surprised. As she turned to go, he called out once more. "Hey, Mere?" She stopped and looked back at him; he swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. He wanted to thank her for the last half-hour, for being the bright spot in his otherwise abysmal day. He wanted her to know how much it had meant to him, how much _she_ meant to him. He wanted to, but he was afraid she'd run, and that—that would ruin the rest. "If you change your mind about next weekend, the offer stands, okay? I'd be honored to have you as my date."

"Bye, Derek," was all she said before she twisted the doorknob and disappeared back into the crowded halls outside.

He watched her until the door settled back into his frame, cutting off his view of her retreating figure. He hadn't expected this from her today. She hadn't initiated conversation with him since they'd broken up three weeks earlier, and she'd been careful not to let herself respond to his flirting. This was a change…this was…dare he hope, _progress_…and he liked it. He turned back to his computer and typed out two brief emails, one to Maggie with his flight details, one to Mark about the change in Meredith's schedule. After both were sent, he reached for the phone and dialed the number for his favorite florist—the only one who'd been able to procure decent off-season blooms. There was no way he was going to let Meredith go home to dead flowers—even if she pretended not to need them, want them, want him. He wasn't about to give up that easily.


	9. Chapter 9

**A**/**N: Oh my gosh. This chapter proved to be so much bigger than I anticipated. Twenty and one-fourth pages in Word. I have been working so hard on this since Sunday, and I thought it would never be finished. This is a week after the last chapter--it's the Ellis memorial fund-raiser. Lots of things happen here. Because this chapter turned out SO long (roughly 8,000 words), there's no way I'm going to be able to knock out another update before I leave for Alaska early Friday morning. I figure, though, that if I'm about to abandon you for the next two weeks, it's a good peace offering if I leave an extra-long chapter to tide you over? Please stick with me--don't think I've abandoned the story when I don't update for a while. I'm not giving up on this story--just playing in Alaska on my graduation trip. I'm going to try to START the next part tomorrow, so it will at least be partially written when I get back on June 3. It will likely be June 4 or 5 before I update again. So...in the next two weeks, what can you do for me? Reviews are love (long reviews are greater love). I was so thrilled with all the positive feedback I got last time--I'd love to have that happen again. This is also a perfect time for those of you who are still lurking and not commenting to let me know what you like/love/don't like/hate...I'll be gone TWO WEEKS. That's two weeks for you to find 30 seconds to leave me a comment and make my day. I think 8,000 of my words and hours of my time for 30 seconds of your time is a fair trade, yes? Thanks again--hope you enjoy this update, and I apologize again for typos (I've only proofread once...21 pages is a lot at 12:30 AM.) See you all in two weeks!**

Of all the ways that Meredith would prefer not to spend a Friday night, putting on a formal dress and attending a hospital-sanctioned slap in her mother's face definitely ranked among the worst, second only to its alternative: staying home with Izzie, who had taken over the kitchen to experiment with a new cake recipe. She was considering switching the rankings—at least she'd get chocolate out of the deal if she stayed with Izzie, and _that_ was better than standing around while the hospital essentially whored out her mother's memory for donations. She had absolutely no desire to hear Webber reminisce on Ellis's work over the PA and express, on behalf of everyone, what a profound loss her illness and death had been to the medical profession and the world. She wasn't interested in engaging in awkward conversations with physicians she'd never met (or hadn't seen since she was eight years old) who felt the need to tell her exactly how they'd known her mother and recount in minute detail every procedure they'd seen her perform. She had managed to win one battle, by refusing to provide family photographs for what Larry Jennings and the other board members called a "pictorial tribute" of Ellis's life, but she was sure they'd assemble some cheesy slideshow of photos from old newspapers and medical journals if they were determined enough. Really, there was absolutely nothing that promised to redeem the evening in her mind.

Not that Derek hadn't tried. He must have tried to convince her to go with him another four or five times over the past week, and he wasn't above one last, eleventh-hour appeal, either. She'd arrived home from work to get ready and had just stepped out of the shower when the flowers arrived, complete with a note: _Call and give me the word, and I can pick you up at eight._ She had to give him credit for his persistence, even though it wasn't going to pay off. She tried to convince herself that she was merely trying to avoid giving the hospital gossip chain new fodder, but she knew that she was probably just a little bit afraid, too. Talking to Derek was one thing. Working with Derek was fine. Derek sending her flowers? A little uncomfortable, but flattering just the same. Going on a date (platonic as he tried to make it sound) with Derek? Inviting trouble. Not a smart idea.

"Meredith?" Izzie called from downstairs. "It's almost seven forty-five. When do you have to leave?"

"Damn it," Meredith muttered under her breath. "Now!" she yelled back to Izzie as she fumbled on her dresser for another bobby pin. Her elbow bumped the vase of lilies delivered that afternoon, and they swayed dangerously before she grabbed them and steadied the base, pushing them away from the edge. In the process, the pieces of her hair that she'd carefully pinned up fell, leaving the loose waves to frame her face again. She studied her reflection for a moment before giving in. "Screw it." She'd wear her hair down. She liked it better down anyway.

She made it to the Archfield with a minute to spare and hurried to the ballroom the hospital had rented, hoping she wouldn't stumble over the heels she wasn't accustomed to wearing or trip on her dress and tear the delicate chiffon. She wished that she knew how do this ultra-girly thing a little better. She could handle shorter, more casual dresses, especially when she was _trying_ to attract attention to herself, but when it came to formal eveningwear and picking a dress that _wasn't_ most likely to pick up a guy in a bar, she didn't have quite as much experience. She'd skipped the high school dances and prom phase in her teenage years. Izzie had helped her pick out the dress for tonight, assuring her that the seafoam green would make her eyes look "incredible." As if Meredith cared about that. She only cared that it wasn't cut _too_ low in the back, and the front, though a V, still fell within anyone's standard of respectable. Derek was going to be there, after all. She didn't need to give him any ideas about taking that dress _off_ of her in the hotel bathroom or booking a room for the night. Not that she'd let him, if he tried. At least, she hoped she wouldn't. That hope—and not certainty—was exactly why she was determined to _not_ give him anything to look at, so that she wouldn't find herself in a position to test her resolve.

"Dr. Grey, glad to see you made it," Webber and Larry Jennings met her immediately inside the ballroom, and the Chief stared her down with a warning eye. "We were getting concerned that our guest of honor would be late."

Guest of honor. She hated that; being here was definitely _not_ an honor. A punishment, maybe. Being the guest of honor—solely because she was Ellis's progeny—made it sound like she was happy to attend, and absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. She forced a weak smile. "Just…hit some traffic."

"No worries," Jennings assured her with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Now, Dr. Grey, we've put you at the head table by Dr. Brooks from the Mayo Clinic and Dr. Reinhardt from the U.N. They worked with your mother extensively, as I'm sure you remember, and expressed a special interest in being able to speak with you this evening..."

Meredith only half-listened as he ran down the list of expected attendees and reviewed the program of the night's events. As soon as he finished talking, she plucked a flute of champagne from a nearby tray and took a strong sip. This evening would probably be a hell of a lot easier—and these people much more bearable—if she had a little alcohol first. Within fifteen minutes of her own arrival, guests began to filter into the ballroom, making their way through Jennings and the other trustees, Webber, and eventually Meredith, who blissfully only had to endure about thirty seconds of small talk with each person in order to move on to the next in line. She'd just ended her introduction to her twentieth person—a short, robust man with a receding hairline who'd apparently been in Ellis's fellowship program in Boston—when she turned and jumped slightly in surprise.

"Good evening, Dr. Grey," Derek said warmly. "It's a pleasure to see you again."

She stared at him, dumbfounded, for a moment. He looked…amazing…in his tux, and he'd shaved recently, and his eyes were looking at her like... "Hi," she said softly, hoping that her face wasn't flushing and betraying her thoughts. "Dr. Shepherd," she added quickly, remembering that things needed to stay professional.

He leaned in, so close that his breath rustled her hair, and murmured in her ear, "You look beautiful." There was no hope of _not_ blushing after that, but before she could string words together into a coherent response, he grinned at her and kept walking, leaving her to deal with the tall, frigid-looking woman behind him. She watched him leave helplessly, suddenly wanting nothing more than for him to stay with her and save her from this agonizing receiving line. As guests continued to file in and demand her attention, she snuck glances every few minutes at Derek, who had the enviable ability to fit in anywhere…or at least did a much better job of pretending than she could. Occasionally, he'd meet her eyes and smile reassuringly, but gave no indication that he'd read her cues to rescue her.

Finally, everyone had arrived, and Meredith downed the last of her champagne on her way to her chair. She sat down between two of the most esteemed doctors on staff at the two of the most prestigious institutions in the country, and all she could think about was going home. Cristina would be appalled; this was the sort of thing she'd love, being able to soak up the presence of the medical greats in hope of absorbing some of their genius by osmosis. Meredith wasn't oblivious to what an honor meeting these doctors _should_ be, but under the circumstances, they were the last people she really wanted to have to engage with in pointless conversation. Thankfully, after they'd offered their condolences to her over her mother's death, they more or less talked to each other about their memories of Ellis and their current work while they ate. Meredith barely noticed the small orchestra playing background dinner music, and did her best to tune out the voices around her. She picked at her chicken and tasted the steamed vegetables on her plate, but largely found that she had little appetite for anything the evening had to offer. Whatever desire to eat she _did_ have soured as soon as a representative from the board made the announcement to socialize freely while the tables were cleared and dessert was prepared.

Without food to otherwise occupy their mouths, the men surrounding her immediately turned their attention to Meredith. Reinhardt looked at Meredith's barely-touched plate and chortled. "Your mother was a light eater, too," he told her. "I asked her to dinner once; I think she agreed to go for the sole purpose of cutting me down over dessert. She was a formidable woman, your mother."

Meredith forced a weak smile. "My mother didn't place much importance on romantic relationship. She felt they distracted her from her work."

"I don't remember her ever taking a night off during her time at Mayo," Dr. Brooks agreed. "Her love was her work…and her family, too, of course, Dr. Grey."

"Dr. Grey," interjected Dr. Weil, a pediatric surgeon her mother had worked with at Massachusetts General. "I hope you'll forgive such a personal question, but I and a number of your mother's colleagues in Boston were surprised by the lack of a memorial service. Is there a place where we can pay our respects, while we're in town?"

Meredith felt her stomach churn. She didn't want to be here at all. "My um, my mother didn't want any services," she explained. "She requested to be cremated in her will; her ashes were…scattered at sea." It wasn't a complete lie, and the truth would probably earn her more than a few odd stares. It seemed like a good story to stick with, for now.

"You know, I was thinking the other day about the Harper Avery awards," Dr. Weil continued, "They used to have the ceremony this time of year, and I think it was fifteen years ago this week that Ellis won her first."

It was. Meredith remembered it in vivid detail. She'd been thirteen, left with a babysitter in Seattle for a week while her mother flew to Baltimore for the ceremony. The babysitter was some med student Ellis had found through the university, who obviously hoped that staying with Meredith would give her an advantage when she applied for her internship at Seattle Grace. She'd actually been a nice girl, considering the circumstances. It had to have been fairly awkward when the teenage girl you'd known for only four days came to you crying because she'd just gotten her first period; maybe as awkward as being that teenage girl who had to _ask_ the babysitter what to do because her mother hadn't been willing to bother with her teary cross-country phone call.

"_For god's sake, Meredith, why are you calling me about this? I gave you a book about this two years ago and explained it to you _very_ thoroughly. I'm about to be presented with a very prestigious award that I've worked extremely hard for—I don't have time to deal with this. You know that what's happening is perfectly natural and normal. If you're hurting, get the ibuprofen from the nightstand in my bedroom and take two, and if you still have questions, we'll talk when I get home in a few days. Now go find Catherine and ask her to take you to the pharmacy to get what you need. I'm sure she's more than capable of handling this situation—that's what she's being paid for, after all." _

"Dr. Grey?"

Meredith shook her head and tuned back in to Dr. Weil. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I'm afraid I didn't hear your question."

"I asked whether you were in possession of Ellis's awards?" Dr. Weil repeated.

Meredith thought she remembered stumbling across the two plaques in a box of her mother's possessions, next to her framed degrees. She was pretty sure they were in the attic. "They're in storage."

"Oh, Dr. Grey, you should have them out and on the wall," Dr. Weil said in a saccharine tone designed to thinly veil her reproach. "Those are something to be proud of—your mother's life work…"

Meredith faked a smile and bit her tongue before she said something the hospital would regret.

"Excuse me, Dr. Weil." Meredith twisted around in her chair and wondered if she'd ever been so happy to hear Derek's voice.

"Derek Shepherd," he introduced himself, extending a hand over Meredith's shoulder. "Head of Neurosurgery at Seattle Grace. My sister completed her internship under you about fifteen years ago. Maggie MacLean?"

"Yes," Dr. Weil smiled warmly. "I remember Maggie well. A promising young surgeon—where is she operating now?"

"She's not cutting anymore, actually," Derek replied. "Her second child was born in '95 and she joined a private pediatric practice. It allows her more time with her girls than surgery did."

"Well, that's a loss for the surgical field, but I'm glad she's found a balance she enjoys," Dr. Weil nodded. "Please give her my regards when you speak to her."

"I will," Derek assured her. "Actually, I was wondering if I might steal Dr. Grey for a few minutes?"

"Well, uh, yes, of course—" Dr. Weil said, looking questioningly from Meredith to Derek.

He'd already turned his attention to Meredith, offering her his hand with a soft smile. "Dr. Grey, may I have this dance?"

Her jaw dropped and her heart skipped a beat. Dancing. Derek. That meant…closeness, and touching. But…_not_ taking his hand meant being left at the table and further subjection to the torture of forced conversation. He had her between a rock and a hard place, and damn him, it was probably intentional. Her teeth pressed into her lower lip punishingly as she glanced from Derek to the doctors around her, weighing her options. There wasn't any way she could win.

"Go ahead, Dr. Grey, we can finish our conversation later," one of the men—Reinhardt or Brooks, she couldn't tell—encouraged.

"Come on, Dr. Grey," Derek murmured, his eyes sparkling.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and slowly, carefully placed her hand in Derek's outstretched palm. It was the first time they'd touched, _really_ touched, in a month, and the contact sent a shiver down her spine as Derek helped her up from her seat. He led her silently to the dance floor, where a handful of other couples were taking advantage of the orchestra to float elegantly to the music. Couples, she corrected herself. Not _other_ couples, because she and Derek weren't a couple.

He turned to face her and guided her hand to his shoulder before placing both of his lightly on her sides. Her whole body was trembling, and she was thankful she'd barely touched her dinner. There was a strong chance she might throw up at any second. "Derek, what are you doing?" she hissed.

He smirked; it infuriated her. "Dancing with you."

"Derek—" she protested.

He ignored her objections, instead asking, "What is this, Meredith? Seventh grade?" He gently pressed her closer to him, and she adjusted, reluctantly slipping her arms around his neck, rather than keeping her palms firmly against his shoulders, as she took a step into him. She was careful to keep space between them, even though Derek was now well past the comfort zone she'd have liked for them.

"Derek. You don't dance in public," she reminded him.

"Mm," he hummed as they swayed slowly. "For you I do."

She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Why?"

"Because you looked completely miserable sitting over there," he replied frankly. "And you wanted to dance."

"I did? And when did I tell you that?" she asked.

"You didn't have to," he said, his voice soft, barely above a murmur. "I know you. You're the little girl who dreamed of being Cinderella at the ball even though your mother told you fairytales were childish and foolish. Am I right?"

"Mm," she replied, unable to stop an amused smirk from appearing on her lips. "Are you supposed to be my Prince Charming then?"

"I think I've made enough mistakes with you that I can no longer claim the charming part," he admitted with a shake of his head. "But I can still dance with you and save you from the big bad doctors."

"You're mixing up fairy tales, Derek," she pointed out. Even if he was right about her non-fanciful childhood, she was pretty sure big bad wolves had never crossed paths with Cinderella. "I'm usually the one who does things like that."

"Mm. When you do it, it's cute," he grinned. "I find it adorable, actually."

His hands slid around her waist and up, his fingertips brushing her bare back and sending chills through her body. She tensed against the pressure his palms exerted on her body, pushing her further into him. "Derek—hands," she warned.

He returned his hands to her hips immediately; he probably hadn't even realized that their position had shifted. "Sorry," he murmured. "I know, I promised, no feeling you up."

She smiled softly in an attempt to reassure him. She could feel his hands shaking slightly as they rested against her body; he was just as nervous as she was, though she couldn't completely rule out the dancing itself as the cause of his anxiety. "So why are we really dancing?" she asked after a brief silence.

He exhaled slowly. "I'm trying to show you," he admitted. "Give you something to believe in. I know it's not much, but—I thought, maybe…" He paused and grinned playfully. "And it _did_ give you an escape from the rest of your dinner group."

"Well—thank you for that," she replied. She recognized the ending chords as the orchestra finished their song and looked up at Derek with a reluctant frown. "I guess I should get back though—"

"You don't have to," Derek protested, tightening his hands around her waist to keep her from pulling away. "You can keep dancing with me," he suggested hopefully.

"I don't know—" Meredith hesitated.

"Come on, Mere," his eyes were dark, pleading with her to stay. "One more dance, and then if you want to go I won't say anything."

"Okay," she sighed, allowing Derek to resume the lead as the orchestra picked up. She had to actively remind herself _not_ to let her hands move, to _not_ let her fingers to travel the few inches up Derek's neck to tangle in his curls, to _not_ let herself get too comfortable with his hands on her, because now that she was over the initial shock, it felt…not awful. Okay, it felt…really, really nice. Familiar. Safe. And she couldn't let Derek lure her into illusions of safety again. She looked up at him and smiled softly. "Even if she would have hated this whole thing…I have to give the Chief credit. My mother loved this music."

"Your mother liked something that wasn't surgical?" Derek replied, incredulous.

"Funny man," she gave him a wry smirk. "She liked classical music, the standards. She was one of those moms who made me listen to classical music, except that she did it way before anyone thought there were benefits to it."

"I'm sure she loved the way that worked out when you started picking out your own music in the 80s. I mean seriously, Mere…Duran Duran?" he teased.

"The Clash?" she retorted.

"Watch it, woman," he growled playfully. "You don't want to go there."

"You started it," she reminded him with a pouty lower lip.

He laughed. "You're the one who brought up music."

"Well, _you're_ the one who wanted to dance with me," she argued.

He grinned. "Then let's dance."

Meredith peeked over his shoulder and saw the other couples leaving the dance floor, making their way back to their seats. She saw Webber approaching the microphone and unknowingly dug her nails into the back of Derek's neck. He winced in discomfort, and she immediately stopped, pulling back to look up at him. "I think I have to go back to my table. Look--"

He followed her eyes to Webber and relinquished his hold on her hips with a disappointed sigh. "Do you _want_ to go back?"

She glanced at the long table she'd been seated at, where the vultures her mother had worked with remained. The last thing she wanted was to rejoin them while they picked apart the carcass of her mother's memory. "No," she admitted.

"Then don't," Derek suggested, taking her hand in his. "Come sit with me at my table. There's an open seat right next to mine."

She met his eyes; he looked so hopeful, so desperate…he wanted her with him, and…Derek _was_ infinitely better company than stuffy surgeons she'd never met. She probably shouldn't, though—she was already much too content with how her hand felt enclosed in Derek's—but…she didn't _want_ to leave him. "Okay," she gave in.

He smiled, pleased, and led her back to his table, where he pulled out her chair and helped her sit down. Almost immediately, a waiter appeared to place a chilled plate topped with a generous slice of cheesecake in front of each person at the table. As Derek slid her chair in, Meredith chanced a quick look at Webber, who was glaring at her and Derek crossly.

"I don't think the Chief is happy that I'm messing up his seating chart," Meredith said quietly.

Derek twisted his head in a completely unsubtle motion to see what she meant. He turned back to her and squeezed her hand once. "Forget it. You showed up, that's more than he should have ever asked of you. You don't owe it to anyone to make yourself miserable. I'll tell you a secret, if you want."

Her curiosity was piqued. "What?"

He leaned in close to whisper conspiratorially. "I made my RSVP for myself and a guest. Just so there'd be an empty seat if you needed an escape and wanted me to rescue you."

She didn't know what to say, but fortunately—or unfortunately—Webber had started to talk over the PA system. "Distinguished colleagues and guests, allow me to welcome you once again to tonight's celebration of the life of one of our most influential and talented friends and coworkers, taken from us far too soon…"

Meredith tried to stifle a groan, making it come out more like a low growl. "She didn't want a funeral, and he's up there giving her a freaking eulogy…"

She felt Derek's hand cover hers gently, his fingers curling under her palm as his thumb rubbed soothingly over her knuckles. "Don't listen to him," he murmured. "Just eat your cheesecake."

She felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth and took her hand away to reach for a fork. The cheesecake was amazing, rich and full and…heavenly distracting. Between the delicious taste in her mouth, and Derek's surprisingly comforting presence by her side, she was able to ignore most of what Webber said about her mother's work, life, and legacy. After she'd finished her own cheesecake, she eyed Derek's—he'd only taken a few bites before quitting. Derek was all about treating himself in moderation when it came to food. She met his eyes questioningly, and he shook his head with an amused smirk as he handed the plate to her. She attacked what was left of Derek's dessert happily, and was halfway through when a sudden round of applause signaled that Webber had finished talking.

"I can believe you've eaten almost two slices of cheesecake," Derek gawked. "Where do you fit it?"

"You ate half of yours," Meredith defended herself. "And I didn't eat dinner."

"Mm," Derek nodded, as if that justified her indulgence. "Good. Skip the protein and fiber, go straight for the saturated fat. That's always my plan, too."

She ignored him and poked at what remained of his cheesecake thoughtfully before taking another bite. "My mother loved this," she said softly.

"Cheesecake?" Derek guessed. He was usually much better at following her seemingly random jumps from thought to thought. She had to give him credit though—he was out of practice.

"Mm," she nodded as she swallowed. "It's one of the good memories I have of her. She introduced me to cheesecake when I was little—like four or five. When I was in elementary school, she'd bribe me with cheesecake to forgive her when she missed something at school or my birthday or whatever…" She trailed off and rolled her eyes at his sympathetic frown. "I know, your mom never missed anything."

"No, she did," Derek replied. "Rarely, but she did. It was hard for her, raising all five of us alone. She tried her best, but sometimes she couldn't be everywhere at once."

"At least she tried," Meredith shrugged. She looked at the last bite of cheesecake and her stomach turned, threatening to revolt if she tried to force it down. She sighed and dropped the fork, clattering onto the plate.

"Do you want to dance with me again?" Derek asked suddenly.

She met his eyes and smiled playfully, holding out her hand. He grinned and stood up first, taking her hand and leading her back out onto the floor. They resumed their previous position, Meredith's hands clasping behind his neck and his hands finding their accustomed place on her hips. Meredith fought a mental battle with herself. It shouldn't feel this familiar, this right—they weren't together. She'd warned herself against letting him win her over tonight. But—it did feel right, and Derek—he was the one thing keeping her sane tonight. She _wanted_ this, wanted to pretend that for a night, they were okay. Wanted to…but she couldn't…couldn't let herself give in completely…

She leaned back against his embrace and he acquiesced, giving her a little more space between them. "When do you leave for New York?" she asked, desperate for something innocuous to talk about, something to take their minds off of their hands touching each other.

"Two weeks from tomorrow," he answered. "My sisters decided not to tell my mom that I'm coming home; we're going to surprise her."

"I'm sure she'll be happy," Meredith smiled. From the little she knew about Derek's mother, she was sure happy was an understatement. Elated would be more like it. After all, Derek was the only son, and he'd been gone a few years. Parents were supposed to find prolonged separation from their children completely unbearable…or so she imagined. Her parents had never seemed to mind too much.

"She will," Derek nodded. He paused for a few seconds before adding,"I took the whole week off, so I can be there for New Year's, too. I figure I've been gone for so long, it might help my case if I'm there for a week."

Meredith forgot to breathe for a moment. A week. He was going to be gone a week? She wouldn't see him at the hospital for an entire week? She'd been prepared for a few days, but a _week_? She supposed the better question was why it should affect her in any way. They weren't together. Derek wasn't leaving _her_. He wasn't _with_ her. It shouldn't matter _how _long he wanted to stay away. "How is your sister? Julie?"

He looked at her quizzically before responding. Damn; he knew something was off, knew that something had thrown her. "She's okay. I talked to her a few days ago."

"Good," was all Meredith could manage. She didn't care much about talking anymore. She needed to regain control of herself, calm her breathing, calm her pulse, because he could surely feel her blood racing through her veins under his hands. It was ridiculous for her to react this way. She and Derek were not together. Not together. Deep breath. Air in, air out. He wasn't leaving _her_. They weren't together. Except for pretending, tonight. She was pretending. She didn't know what he was doing. But she…she was definitely letting herself make a huge mistake by pretending that they were okay, that the security she felt right now wasn't an illusion, that she wouldn't wake up the next morning as alone as ever.

She didn't realize how badly she was shaking until she felt Derek's thumbs tracing slow, soft circles on her hips to calm her. "Mere," he breathed, his eyes flooded with concern. "What is it?"

Her green eyes flickered to his and she made herself smile, hoping it would reassure him as she shook her head, trying to brush it off like nothing. "You were right." She hated the ways words tumbled from her mouth when she was nervous and emotional, cascading, babbling, usually an incoherent mess of thoughts that only Derek ever seemed able to string together into something that made an ounce of sense. She took a deep breath and tried to choose her phrasing carefully.

"About my mother and fairytales. I wasn't allowed to read them. My dad read them to me when I was little, and I had a babysitter in Boston who would let me watch Disney movies as long as I promised not to tell my mother—but my mother said that they would give me unrealistic expectations and illusions about love and relationships and gender roles."

He frowned; she could tell he didn't know how to handle this yet. "My sisters turned out okay—they're all doctors," he offered.

"Mm, but Maggie is peds, right?" Meredith continued. "And Nancy's an OB, and Julie is a GP. My mother would say that those are all soft specialties—traditionally acceptable for women. The princess thing made them settle for weaker options, rather than inspiring them to aim for something hardcore, like surgery."

He shook his head in disbelief. "I bet you never played with Judy dolls either, huh?"

"I wanted them," Meredith confessed, "but she told me that they were anatomically impossible and would skew my perception of women's bodies and encourage me to be focused on the frivolity of my physical appearance rather than my mind."

He snorted at that; the fact that he could find humor in it made her feel a little better—but only a little. "What _were_ you allowed to play with, Mere?"

"I read a lot. Drew pictures," she shrugged. "Whatever was quiet and wouldn't make a mess in my mother's office at the hospital. When I got older, I was allowed to stay home by myself and I learned to play with tequila."

"I'm sorry." He understood now. This was an Ellis thing. A _them_ thing. An abandonment thing. A dissolution of faith thing.

"It's okay," she said, even though it wasn't.

"When did it start?" His voice was soft, gentle, supporting. He wanted her to trust him, to talk to him. He wanted to listen. "The tequila, and the boys?"

"The tequila started when I was sixteen," she replied. "The sleeping around didn't start until college." She was sure the second part surprised him. It surprised most people that she'd been a college freshman before she lost her virginity; they assumed she'd been at it much longer, but really—she'd just made a valiant effort at catching up on lost time.

"Your mother didn't know about the tequila?"

"She worked a lot, and there were plenty of other things I gave her to worry about," Meredith shook her head and smiled wryly. "That was my dressing in black and pink hair phase."

"I'd kill to see pictures of you like that," he grinned. She could tell he was trying to get her mind off the negative, get her to focus on something…slightly happier.

"They're in the attic somewhere," she said. "Her big fight with me back then was over my grades. I was smart, but I didn't care…she was determined that I wasn't going to screw up my chances of getting into a good school. As long as I kept my GPA up, she picked her other battles carefully." She stopped and took a deep breath. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, and she wasn't sure she had the energy to fight them back.

"She wasn't…I mean…she tried, you know?" Meredith laughed uneasily; she hadn't expected to deal with her mother tonight. She'd thought that being angry about the event would keep her from actually remembering her mother, but she'd surprised herself with the memories that resurfaced, despite her best efforts to quell them into dormancy. "She didn't ever want a kid, but she had me, and she tried—"

"She just didn't know how to be a mother to you," Derek soothed. "Your personality is so different from hers…your experiences made your needs different. She didn't know how to be the mother you needed—"

"Yeah," Meredith agreed, sniffling softly. He made sense; he was saying things she'd thought herself, but even from him, they held little comfort.

"Mere, I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to make you upset—"

"It's okay," she assured him, her voice barely more than a whimper and not at all convincing. "I just…I hate that I'm never going to know her as an adult, you know? That I'm never going to hear her tell me that she's proud of me, that I did something right—and I don't know that she ever would have been able to bring herself to say it anyway, but there's just no chance now…" she was falling apart now, and her words were quickly disintegrating into that unintelligible mush.

Derek slid one hand up her back, resting between her shoulder blades, as he brought the other to her face. He brushed away the tears staining thin trails down her face, and stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. "I know," he whispered. "I understand."

Through her own tears, she caught the sadness in his voice. She knew they were talking about his dad as well as her mother now. "You're always making me cry lately," she observed with a bitter laugh as he wiped away the next few drops to run down her face.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "Do you want to go sit down?"

"No," she shook her head quickly. She didn't want to sit down. She didn't want to be anywhere else, because even it was just pretending, she needed to feel safe and okay right now. She needed to believe that for this moment, she wasn't alone. She smiled weakly. "I'm okay here."

He didn't look completely convinced, but he let his hand fall from her face and drew her close again. "Okay."

As they started to move again, Meredith impulsively stepped into him and laid her head on his shoulder. She heard his breath hitch in his chest, and for a split-second, he froze, unsure of whether to believe what had just happened. Meredith was just as surprised; every self-preservation instinct in her head screamed at her to stop, to think about what she was doing, to get away _now_ before she fooled herself into thinking anything had changed and setting herself up to be hurt again. She pushed them aside, telling herself again that Derek was keeping her sane tonight, and she could handle entertaining the fantasy for the moment because she _knew_ the reality, that they _weren't_ together, that this was ending when the clock struck midnight.

Derek's voice in her ear brought her out of her internal debate. "You know we're giving the rumor mill something to run with right now."

She lifted her head just enough to see the Chief and a couple of other doctors she recognized from the hospital watching them, casting furtive glances before turning to one another with hushed voices. She nestled her head against him again. "I don't care."

"Me either,' he replied. She recognized that his hands were nowhere near the established safe zones. One was around her waist, and the other was on her back, his fingers splayed across her skin. She felt him breathe against her, and when he spoke, the vibrations resounded through his body into hers. She knew what this felt like—and she'd missed it. She missed him holding her; she missed feeling safe in his arms. She didn't miss the terror and uncertainty that came when she left them, so she had no intention of letting him end this any time soon. He held her and danced with her while she cried the rest of her tears into the collar of his jacket, occasionally taking one hand from around his neck to dry her face. She lost track of how long they danced, but she knew he carried her through song after song after song, never hinting that he was tired—and she knew he must be—but staying with her as long as she wanted. She _wanted_ it to keep going; she felt safe, and content, and _right_ with him, and she didn't want that to go away. She didn't want the night to end and send her back to a world when Derek made her feel very unsafe, and wasn't always so charming, and wasn't hers.

At least a half-hour must have passed before Derek brought one hand to her hair, running his fingers through her loose waves slowly. "Mere?" he murmured, waiting for the throaty hum that had become her only response to his attempts at conversation. "Are you ready to get out of here?"

She raised her head to look around; the room had cleared out considerably. Maybe only a dozen people were left, including the Chief and Larry Jennings, who were talking eagerly with Dr. Reinhardt. She thought about Derek's hands on her, holding her, protecting her…shielding her from the rest of her life. She wasn't ready to give that up, but she couldn't keep fooling herself. They weren't together. Pretending like this was probably going to get her in trouble with her therapist. A mentally stable and healthy woman trying to get over a man probably shouldn't spend a whole evening dancing with him and dreaming that they weren't broken up. She should quit now, before she got herself hurt. "Yeah, I think so."

"Come on, I'll walk you out to your car," he offered.

She lowered her arms from his neck and stepped back to protest. "You don't have to—"

"Do that," he finished with a soft smile. It was her smile. The one he only gave her. The one that made her feel like he thought she was the only woman in the world, like he absolutely adored her. "I know. But I want to. It's late, and I want to make sure you get to your car safely."

"I can take care of myself," she insisted, even as he walked with her to the coat check to retrieve her purse.

"With your tiny ineffectual fists? Mm," he teased. He took his coat from the clerk and held it out to Meredith. "Here, put this on. It'll be cold outside. What were you thinking, leaving home without a coat?"

"I was running late," she replied as he draped his coat over her shoulders. "Thank you."

As they stepped outside, she felt Derek's fingers brush hers as he reached for her hand. Her stomach flip-flopped; she wanted to let him, wanted to hang on for just these last few moments, but she had to make the break somewhere. Give herself a reality check. She folded her arms over her chest, hoping he'd believe that she was cold and not realize that she was trying to avoid his touch.

"Thank you, for dancing with me tonight," he said as they crossed the parking lot to her Jeep. A thin layer of ice had formed on the windshield. "I hope it wasn't a completely wasted night for you."

"No—it helped," Meredith admitted. "You, I mean. You helped. It um…it wasn't nearly as awful as I'd expected. I think I have you to thank for that."

They'd arrived at her car, and she shrugged out of his coat before opening her door. He took it as she leaned across the seat to start the engine and turned on the heat so the windshield would thaw. "I really enjoyed tonight, Mere," Derek said behind her. "Being with you…"

She faced him again and smiled hesitantly. "Yeah," she agreed. He reached out and brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek before sliding his hand into her hair. Her heart skipped a beat and she stopped breathing as she recognized the look in his eyes. He was about to kiss her. Her eyes widened and her mind raced; he was going to kiss her…she wanted him to kiss her…but kissing Derek was opening Pandora's box…she wasn't ready to deal…but she hadn't kissed him in a month, and she'd spent the night in his arms, and she _wanted_…

She turned her head at the last moment so that his kiss fell on her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her lower lip harshly until she felt his lips lift from her face. The tears that had just dried a half-hour before renewed as he pressed his forehead to hers and his breath whispered across her skin.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, his voice cracking with regret. "I thought—I just—tonight felt so perfect, Mere, and I just thought, maybe…"

She didn't want him to beat himself up over it. It _had_ felt perfect. Too perfect. She'd known better…she'd known something would happen if she didn't keep her guard up. "I'm not ready," she apologized. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry," he repeated adamantly. He pulled back, allowing her to see that his eyes were wet, too. "Everything good that happened tonight, I just ruined it…"

"You didn't ruin anything," she assured him. She hated seeing him like this. She hated _feeling_ like this, torn between what she wanted so badly and what she didn't feel capable of having, and hurting them both in the process. "You're just…you're always a few steps ahead of me, Derek."

"I know," he sighed. "I'm trying to be patient. I'm trying to slow down—"

"I know. I can tell," she nodded. She _could_ tell. Aside from the flowers and asking her out for tonight, he'd barely mentioned the idea of _them_, and she heard enough through the hospital gossip chain to know that he hadn't been doing anything that could even _possibly _be misconstrued as flirting with the nurses. He was trying to be patient, but Derek had always been the one pushing their relationship, so Derek's idea of patience...was still a little much. "But just…don't push me, okay?" she asked. "Let me come to you."

He smiled, and she thought she detected a glimmer of hope among the sadness in his eyes. "Okay. I can try. I can…I can do that."

"Okay. Thank you, again, for saving me tonight."

He took her hand and squeezed it one final time. "Anytime. Good night, Mere."

"Good night."

She climbed into her Jeep and flicked on the windshield wipers to swish away the remaining icy sludge before she backed out of her parking space. She waved once to Derek as she passed him, walking to his car, but once she was on the road, the drive home passed in a daze. Derek's kiss burned on her cheek. It wasn't enough. She _knew_ what that kiss would have felt like on her lips, and she wanted it. She wanted to kiss him, taste him, touch him, love him again, and she couldn't let herself do it.

The enticing aroma of Izzie's freshly-baked cake filled the house when she got home. Normally, she'd head straight to the kitchen to taste-test, but now…now she didn't want to be around anyone. She'd blame it on being full from the two slices of cheesecake, if Izzie said anything to her. Safe in the sanctuary of her bedroom, she locked the door and peeled off her dress, leaving it in a crumpled pile at her feet. She tore open her dresser drawers and took out a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved t-shirt and slipped them on before she could start shivering from the cold. She gave the drawer a strong shove to close it, and the dresser rattled with the force. For the second time that night, she gasped and grabbed the vase of lilies just before it crashed to the floor and shattered. As she righted the flowers on her dresser, a choked sob escaped her throat.

She sank to the floor, drawing her knees to her chest, and let the tears fall. He'd sent her flowers. He'd danced with her all night, just to keep her from being uncomfortable around strangers. He'd held her and listened to her and talked to her, and he'd kissed her, and it had all been _perfect_. She _wanted_ him, damn it, she wanted him, but she couldn't…couldn't. She loved him, and he could make her so, so happy…so safe…but that was all just the fantasy, the make-believe, wasn't it? Just the fairytale—and fairytales weren't real, were they? She'd believed her mother, that true love was a myth, until she'd met Derek…and then she'd believed him…believed in him, in _them_. Until the illusion had broken, and after that…she hadn't known _what_ to believe anymore. She wanted to believe in _them_ again. She _wanted_ to believe that the ease with which she'd slipped into his arms earlier, the security and adoration she'd felt with him…she wanted to believe that it hadn't been part of her make-believe, that it _could_ be reality. She wanted…but she couldn't. Ugly stepsisters and wicked witches had nothing on Meredith's dark and twisty.

Her mother had always told her that fairytales never came true. And maybe for Ellis, they'd hadn't. But…Meredith wasn't Ellis. And Meredith had already learned that stepmothers weren't always evil—could be perfectly wonderful, in fact—and that the guy wasn't always completely charming—often a far cry from it—so _her_ story didn't have to be a conventional fairytale. And if anything in Meredith's life had _ever _seemed like any sort of fairytale—tonight was it. Tonight, she'd believed, for just a little while, that happily ever after could still work out for her. It would be the hardest thing she'd ever done…but she'd do it. Whatever it took, even if it wasn't a fairytale ever-after ending...she _would_ be happy.


	10. Chapter 10

**A**/**N: I'm back, and with a new chapter--a day later than promised, _but _about 2,500 words longer than I'd anticipated this chapter would be (hence the day late), so hopefully you'll all forgive me? Alaska was wonderful, thanks for your well-wishes. Almost MORE wonderful than Alaska? The AMAZING reviews you all left for me while I was gone. They made me really happy, you have no idea. I started my summer job the day after I got back, and my energy and time are sapped up by 25 eight-year olds, so while I've been doing well finding the time and motivation (largely fueled by your positive comments and support) to write every night this week, I do expect that my updates will be slightly slower than in the past (but certainly not a two-week hiatus again!) This will be especially true of the next two parts, but for now--you get Chapter Ten, which finds Meredith and Derek a few days after we left them. Mark makes an appearance, being Mark and stirring up trouble, and Meredith goes to therapy again. Some things happen in this chapter; I'm happy with what happens...not sure how I feel about how I wrote it, so...please review after you've read? Like it, love it, hate it, that's okay--I just want to know what you think. I was really flattered with the response last time, so even though this chapter is low on the fluff...I'd really appreciate it if you took a few seconds to comment. **

In the eighteen months that she'd known him, Meredith had developed what she liked to think was a finely tuned sixth sense that alerted her to Derek's presence. It wasn't fail-safe, but she usually had a general idea of when Derek entered a room—or where she'd find him if she wanted to. The reverse was true as well, which came in handy when she _didn't_ want to see him; she knew where to go to successfully avoid running into Derek. In the last month, however, she had become a little rusty. She wasn't sure whether it was her seemingly increased work load—if she wasn't fulfilling her duties for her assigned service, she was often scouring neurosurgical journals or observing advanced procedures from the gallery while charting—or the fact that she wasn't _with_ Derek anymore and didn't _expect_ his company. Maybe he was just getting better at sneaking up on her. Whatever the reason, Meredith was losing her edge.

Four days after her mother's-memory-honoring-tax-deduction-soliciting gala affair, Meredith was ready to attribute her diminished Derek-detection abilities to sheer fatigue. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about Derek all weekend, which would have interfered with her sleep—if she were getting any. She'd fallen asleep for a little while in the wee hours of Saturday morning, before Callie had called her at seven-thirty in an exasperated plea for Meredith to do _something_ about Cristina. Meredith hadn't planned on spending Saturday—her first Saturday off in _too_ long—trying to talk to Cristina into normal behavior (or whatever Cristina's normal looked like) and pretending that her best friend _wasn't_ still in a deep rut over Burke (because that was what Cristina wanted—to ignore and pretend)—but Cristina was her person. And in addition to fulfilling her duties as Cristina's person, Meredith had welcomed the potential distraction from the pervasive thoughts of Derek's hands and eyes and lips on her body. Cristina's chosen therapy, however, had involved drinks at Joe's Saturday night, and even though Meredith stopped at two shots—any more would have been purely masochistic before her early shift on Sunday morning—alcohol made her think porny thoughts, and those—well, those usually centered around Derek.

The same tequila that led to porny thoughts about Derek also helped her sleep—which in turn led to alcohol-influenced porny dreams about Derek. She'd dreaded running into him at work Sunday, knowing what they'd been doing in her dreams, so she'd been relieved to learn that he'd been on call Saturday instead, and wouldn't be in until Monday morning. Once the initial relief had passed, however, she'd found herself wishing that he _had_ been at work with her. She'd still been floating on her delusional contentment from Friday night, still been entertaining the idea that she and Derek might _not_ be fundamentally incompatible and dysfunctional. She'd been as confused as ever about what to do, where they could go from where they were now, but she'd also known that she missed him—that in spite of herself, she'd enjoyed and _wanted_ his company. Sunday—for all that it was a short work day—had been full of Derek thoughts, and that had made for a very long day. Monday had only been slightly better. Meredith usually hated thirty-six hour shifts, but for once, she had to admit that being on-call all night with numerous traumas coming into the pit had its advantages. Interesting surgeries, and absolutely no extra time to think about Derek. It had been a good night, but an incredibly exhausting night, so by the time she finished rounding on her patients, Meredith was barely standing, much less able to program her body to pick up on Derek's approach.

"Hey." His voice behind her startled her out of her sleepy daze and she jumped violently, slamming her patient's chart shut as she whirled to face him.

"Hey!" She tried for pleasantly surprised, rather than scared out of her skin, and attempted a weak smile. She hadn't seen him since Friday, but any hope she'd had of _not_ feeling anything when she saw him again was quickly dissipating.

He tilted his head and smiled at her thoughtfully. "How was your weekend?" he asked softly.

"Good," Meredith nodded a little too eagerly and reminded herself to _not _look at his mouth. That would make her think about kissing him, and kissing him was absolutely _not_ a good idea—now matter _how_ good she knew it would feel. Stupid tequila, stupid porny dreams, stupid Meredith for letting him kiss her cheek in the first place.

Derek stepped up to the counter next to her and flipped open the chart in his own hands. "I didn't see you yesterday," he said as he scrawled a note on the chart.

"I um…I came in late," she replied, biting her lower lip nervously. She hated feeling so awkward around him—she'd been able to handle him before Friday, but why had had he insisted on dancing with her and almost kissing her? That was a dynamic she hadn't planned on reintroducing to their relationship—and now it put them in some odd sort of limbo. They both knew it had happened, but neither was bringing it up, and she didn't know how to do it, or even if she should. "My shift started at six last night," she continued. "I've only been here since then."

He looked up and raised an eyebrow as he clicked his pen and clipped it to the chart. "Really?" he asked, as though he didn't completely believe her.

She narrowed her eyes in confusion. "Yes, really."

"Okay," he nodded slowly and returned his gaze to the gray countertop of the nurse's station. She watched his eyes as they examined the marbled pattern before he switched his attention back to her with a deep exhaled breath, somewhere between a nervous laugh and a relieved sigh. "It's just…I thought…I thought you might be avoiding me. After…you know…"

"After you kissed me," she finished with a knowing smile. "No, I'm not avoiding you." She'd thought about it—but she wasn't, and so he didn't need to know that she'd given the idea serious consideration.

"Good," a grin lit up his face, and his entire carriage shifted. The tension released from his shoulders, allowing his movements a more natural ease and fluidity, and a hint of his normal confidence returned to his eyes and smile. "I thought about calling you this weekend…" he confessed. "To make sure you were okay…I know Friday night brought up a lot of memories for you, about your mother. I was worried about you, and I wanted to call, but I was afraid that might count as pushing. And you said no pushing, so—"

She'd never seen him quite like this. He was nervous, intimated even. Derek Shepherd was intimidated. By her. She could tell from his expression how badly he'd wanted to call her, and she could only imagine how much restraint it must have taken to stop himself from dialing her number. She'd said no pushing. He was trying to follow her rules—and he seemed pretty concerned about the possible consequences of breaking one. "I was with Cristina most of the weekend," she offered. She knew he wouldn't believe that Cristina had helped her with her mommy issues; he knew her better than that. But maybe it would make him feel better—knowing that she hadn't been home alone with her mother's ghost.

He frowned sympathetically. "She's still having a hard time getting over Burke, huh?"

She knew how he felt about Cristina. Glad that Meredith had a friend, a person—even though he was jealous that _he_ wasn't her primary confidant—but always concerned that Meredith gave more than Cristina in the friendship. Worried that Cristina's self-centered tendencies meant that she'd soak up the emotional support Meredith offered without reciprocating in a way that would actually benefit Meredith. Wary of the sometimes co-dependent aspects of their friendships. Meredith knew that on some level, he suspected Cristina's failed engagement as the source of some of Meredith's own reluctance to believe in the potential of her own relationship with Derek, even though he'd never outright accused her of looking to Cristina as an indicator of her own chances, and Meredith had never told him exactly how much she'd wrapped up her own hopes in the future of someone else. Meredith knew that he worried that Cristina would drag her down and keep her in a cynical rut of misery and misanthropy. Sometimes she worried the same thing; misery _did_ love company, and behind her stoic front, Cristina was definitely the picture of misery these days.

Meredith shrugged. "She was in love with him. She doesn't deal with emotions well, and she really loved him. You don't get over someone you've been in love with like that very quickly, if ever..."

"I know," he murmured. She met his eyes, dark and piercing, and she knew, too. They weren't talking about Burke and Cristina anymore.

She swallowed hard and abruptly tore her gaze from his. She directed her attention to the chart she'd just closed minutes before, gripping it in slightly shaky hands and perusing notes and information she'd already read over twice. She watched him in her peripheral vision; he pretended to read a chart, too. He wasn't leaving. He _wasn't_ _leaving_. He wasn't going anywhere. He was still here…with her. She inhaled slowly, deeply, and turned back to him. "If you _had_ called…" she paused as he looked up at her questioningly. "If you had called…I think that would have been okay."

He studied her for a long moment, trying to decide whether to trust his ears, if it was safe to believe. She offered a slight smile and recognized the hopeful spark that appeared in his eyes, the earnestness written on his face. "What if…what if I asked you to dinner tonight?" he proposed, his voice hesitant, soft. Worry clouded his features as he hurried to add, "I'm not trying to push. It can mean as much or as little as you want it to mean; it doesn't have to mean anything—"

She cut him off with a shake of her head. "I can't. I mean…I have something else." Her evening shift the night before had meant another rescheduled therapy appointment; she'd get off work at six tonight and meet Dr. Hadden thirty minutes later, and not a moment too soon if you asked her. They hadn't met since the previous Wednesday, and Friday night alone gave Meredith enough material for tonight's hour. She'd be looking forward to this session even if it didn't provide her with an easy out from Derek's invitation. She wasn't sure what she'd have done if she _hadn't_ had a prior commitment—a part of her had immediately screamed "yes" when he'd asked her to dinner, and that scared her. The part saying "no" was definitely louder, stronger, so she was fairly confident that she'd have turned him down anyway…but maybe not. Maybe the part of her that wanted him despite all logic and reason would have won—but fortunately, she didn't have to find out, because no matter how much of her wanted to go with him or didn't, she _couldn't_. She had therapy.

Derek's face fell and his eyes turned dark again with a dangerous cocktail of anger, envy, and disappointment. "Oh," he said, dejected. "Okay."

Meredith's heart skipped a beat and she felt sick to her stomach. Oh god—he thought—he thought it was someone else. Another man. A date with someone else. "No, it's not—" she said quickly, "it's not like that, Derek. It's a doctor's appointment."

His first reaction was a wave of relief that swept across his face, quickly replaced by a concerned frown. "Another one?" he replied incredulously. "Tonight? That's a little late, isn't it?"

"They fit me in when they can," Meredith replied. "They're…really good about working around my schedule. I was supposed to go yesterday, but I was working."

He nodded slowly in understanding, but the worry didn't leave his eyes. "Is everything okay, Mere?" he asked gently. "I want—I mean--you can--you can tell me, if something's wrong."

"I'm fine, Derek," she shook her head. "Really, it's nothing. I'm good. Fit as a fiddle or whatever." She gave him what she thought was a reassuring smile and hoped he wouldn't pry any further.

He didn't seem to believe her immediately, but after a few seconds, he murmured, "Okay." Apparently resigned to the fact that she wasn't going to offer any more information about her appointment, he sighed and tried a different topic. "OB today, right?"

"Yeah," she replied. "I have a patient at 37 weeks with twins. Dr. Larsen has her scheduled for a c-section at ten, so…"

"Ah, the caesarian," Derek smirked. It amazed her how quickly he switched back to his full teasing form. "There's a procedure we don't see very often. Do you want me to come steal you for my service if I find something for you later?"

"Derek, no favoritism," she reminded him firmly. "I'll be fine. After today, I'm done with OB for good, and I'm one step closer to being with you all the time." Her eyes widened with mortified terror as soon as the words left her mouth. Crap. Damn it. Stupid, Meredith, stupid. "On your service, I mean," she corrected herself immediately. "Neuro. With you, on…neuro…all the time."

She didn't want to look him in the eye after that, but she knew it would make her slip of the tongue worse if she avoided it. She forced herself to meet his gaze and prayed that her face wasn't bright red with her embarrassment. His lips were pressed together, holding back a bark of laughter as he bit his tongue to keep back a smart comment. He couldn't restrain his smug grin, but there was something to be said for small blessings—whatever he was thinking, he didn't say it.

"Just thought I'd offer," was all he said. "Let me know if you change your mind. About dinner, too. If you finish your appointment early—you can call, if you want to…if you change your mind."

"I won't," she shook her head and smiled wistfully. "But thank you. I um…I should go take care of a few things before I have to prep my patient--"

"Right," Derek nodded. As she turned to go, he called her name to stop her. She froze and looked back at him expectantly. "Mere…about your appointment…you know…if you need to talk, or if you decide that you're not fine after all…you know you can tell me, right? You can come to me about whatever it is, and I'll do anything I can…"

"I know," she assured him. And she did—she knew. She believed him. This Derek—he was the Derek she trusted. The Derek she could tell anything to, and have complete confidence that he'd help her. The only problem, she thought as she turned away from him, was that she_ wasn't_ sure this Derek was here to stay.

* * *

Something was wrong with Meredith. Derek couldn't pinpoint it, but he was certain just the same. Rationally, he acknowledged that he couldn't expect her to tell him _everything­—­_to his dismay, they _were_ still broken up—but he'd settle for _anything_, the tiniest crumb, the vaguest hint, at this point. There had been a time when she'd trusted him with her deepest secrets, the things she hid most fiercely from the rest the world. _He'd_ been the one she came to, the one she'd told when she could no longer keep the secret of Ellis's Alzheimer's disease to herself. She'd told him long before anyone else had known—even Cristina. Told him, just hours before Addison had shown up, a hurricane of passive-aggressiveness disguised in Prada and four-inch Jimmy Choos. Meredith had never fully trusted him again after that, he knew. They'd gone through cycles, experienced varying degrees of openness and secrecy, in the months that followed, but she'd never put herself on as dangerous a ledge again. He hadn't been that man, the one deserving of unconditional trust, in Meredith's eyes since that night. He'd do anything to be that man for her again.

Hiding his wife had been big; he'd known it then, and knew it now. But Meredith—whatever she wasn't telling him now was just as big, and he didn't like it. He didn't like the sinking feeling in his gut, the worry that seized his breath in a vice grip when his mind wandered to some of the more unlikely—but frightening—possibilities. The last time he'd felt like this, the last time he'd sensed her shutting him out of some major internal conflict, he'd tried to give her the space she asked for, given her the benefit of the doubt and backed off a little. A few hours later, he'd jumped into frigid, murky water to retrieve her dead body. He wasn't worried about _that_ again, necessarily, but he was worried all the same. Meredith didn't like going to doctors; she made a horrible patient. And this appointment made twice that he knew of, in the span of a week. There was something important going on, and she was keeping it from him. It _couldn't_ be good.

"_Derek._" Mark's voice, a sharp, disgruntled bark, brought Derek back to the moment. He tore his gaze from its subject—the table across the cafeteria where Meredith sat with Cristina and Alex Karev—as the chatter of three dozen hospital employees filled his ears with an indecipherable buzz.

He coughed to clear his throat and stabbed his fork into his salad, trying to make it at least _look_ like he'd remembered the lunch in front of him. "Huh? What?"

Mark crossed his arms over his chest. "Are you even paying attention?" he asked indignantly.

Derek racked his memory for a snippet, a phrase, a word—anything that might make him remember what Mark had been saying. If he had to guess, he'd say it was something about a woman, most likely Hahn, but truthfully—he didn't have a clue. "Sorry," he sighed in apology.

"What is going on with you?" Mark followed Derek's eyes as they traveled back to the small table across the room. "Oh," he chuckled at the realization. "Meredith. Of course."

"Something's going on," Derek said softly, shaking his head as he watched her. She _seemed_ okay right now, spooning yogurt into her mouth (he couldn't tell from this far away, but if he knew her, it was strawberry flavored) and talking to her friends, occasionally smiling at something one of them said. She looked okay, but he wasn't convinced. "I don't know what, but…something's going on."

"What are you talking about?" Mark asked, doing his best to sound interested, even though they both knew that he felt jilted and was just _waiting_ for the opportunity to repeat whatever he'd tried to say earlier. Then again, Derek allowed, maybe he _was_ interested. Mark liked knowing the juicy gossip about the people he worked with. He often extolled their deep stores of information as one of the many benefits of sleeping with nurses--and, depending on whose love life provided the latest fodder, an excellent way of deciding who'd be most willing to become Mark's latest conquest.

"She's had two doctor's appointments in the last week," Derek explained, spearing a piece of chicken and a few pieces of lettuce on his fork. "She says everything's okay, but that…two appointments so close…that's not okay." He heard Mark's chortle and turned back to glare at him. "Why are you laughing? This isn't funny."

Mark stared at him in disbelief, then his lips twisted into a cat-that-ate-the-canary smirk. "Do you seriously not see it?"

Derek furrowed his brow; he was beginning to get frustrated with Mark. Whatever was going on with Meredith—it wasn't a laughing matter. "See what?"

"The answer!" Mark boomed in his most pompous voice. "It's right in front of your face." He paused and waited for Derek to come to the realization himself, shaking his head incredulously when Derek just looked back in stony silence. "Between Nancy and Addison, you seriously can't see—"

"See _what_, Mark?" Derek snapped.

"She's knocked up!" Mark announced, punctuating his theory with a smug grin.

"No," Derek said firmly. The thought of…_that_…had never even crossed his mind, and the possibility was shocking, but he knew immediately it wasn't true. Meredith wasn't pregnant.

"Come on, Derek, that's the only reason a woman goes to the doctor that often--" Mark insisted.

"It doesn't have to be," Derek protested. "She could be sick—getting tests—"

"Would you _rather_ her be sick?" Mark challenged.

Derek faltered. He didn't want Meredith to be pregnant—knew she wasn't—but he didn't want her to be sick, either. He wasn't sure which was worse—which fate he'd hand her if he had to choose. "No, but—"

"If she were sick, you know we'd have heard about it," Mark argued. "You hear _everything_ in the hospital. If she were sick, she'd want the best, and she'd be treated by someone in the hospital. She's obviously seeing someone outside the hospital because she's knocked up and she doesn't want everyone knowing it."

"She's not pregnant," Derek growled.

"When was the last time you slept with her?" Mark demanded.

Derek bristled, casting a quick glance at Meredith, who was still happily eating her lunch, perfectly unaware of Mark's accusations. "That's none of your business—"

"It is if you think there's even a slight chance you could have knocked her up," Mark replied.

Derek's first reaction was to confirm for himself that absolutely, there was no chance Meredith was pregnant. But then—he couldn't be completely sure. They'd been careful. They'd used protection. Meredith had been on the pill, last he knew. The chances of her becoming pregnant were infinitesimal. But as a doctor, he knew that there was _always _a chance. "About five weeks ago," he admitted. "The day before we broke up."

"So there's a chance," Mark maintained. He was much too proud of himself for potentially figuring out Meredith's secret to even consider that he might be wrong. "If you got her pregnant right before you broke up, she'd be finding out now. Trying to figure out what to do. Trying to keep you from finding out until she knows what she's going to do."

If the idea of Meredith being pregnant had unnerved him, the insinuation that she would _debate_ her options was nothing sort of horrifying. Meredith wouldn't be _thrilled_ about a pregnancy, but she wouldn't _not_ carry it through. Of course he believed she had the _right_ to choose what to do, but he _knew_ her. As skittish as she was about the idea of motherhood, if it came down to it, she wouldn't be able to bring herself to terminate a pregnancy—and certainly not _his_ baby. Kids weren't high on her priority list right now, but she knew what the idea of fatherhood meant to him—if it happened, even by accident, she wouldn't take that away from him. And she wouldn't hide it from him. She couldn't, even if she wanted to--which she wouldn't. He knew her body too well; he'd recognize even the earliest changes in her figure—and he'd definitely notice the shift in her behavior. He'd noticed enough to know that _something_ was wrong, but she'd be a wreck if she were pregnant—_everyone_ would know something was up.

Derek was convinced that he was right about this. Mark was just going for sensational; there was nothing to support his theory—it was just a wild guess. Nothing more. "She wouldn't—if she were pregnant, she wouldn't…do anything. She'd have it—and she'd tell me."

"Whatever," Mark shrugged. "She's knocked up or she's fatally ill, and either way she's hiding it from everyone. Take your pick."

"She's not," Derek replied vehemently. "She's not sick, and she's not pregnant."

"Suit yourself," Mark stood up and gathered the trash from his lunch before shoving his chair up to the table. "Let me know when Meredith tells you it's a boy. I think you should name him Mark after his godfather," he added with a devilish smirk, hitting Derek on the shoulder as he started for the trash can. "See you later, Pops."

Derek laughed in spite of himself and shook his head at Mark. He had to give Mark credit for persistence, even if he was very, very wrong. There was no way Meredith was pregnant. He stole another look at her across the cafeteria; there was nothing physically different about her. Her scrubs fit her the same way, although, granted, they didn't exactly offer the most defined outline of her figure. Still, he'd held her in his arms just a few days earlier, danced with her and had his hands on her, and that dress—that dress had left nothing to his imagination with the way it flattered every dip and curve of her body. He'd have noticed if anything was different. He would have.

He breathed a slow sigh of relief. She wasn't pregnant. Mark was an idiot. But something serious was going on, and he definitely, definitely didn't like being left in the dark.

* * *

Meredith was, for the first time, eager for a therapy appointment. At the same time, she was petrified of what might happen in the span of the hour. She'd had days to think about all sorts of things, to analyze and reflect, and she had plenty to say, without a second to waste.

"My mother tried," she blurted the second that Dr. Hadden entered the room. "But she didn't know how to be the mother I needed. It doesn't make everything okay, but…she didn't _not_ love me."

Dr. Hadden raised an eyebrow as she settled into her chair. "That's a very…astute observation, Meredith. How did you come to that?"

"I'd thought about it before," she admitted. "She was…she was the kind of mother my friend Cristina would have loved; she would have really liked me to be more like Cristina. She didn't really do the affectionate, emotional thing."

"And you do?" Dr. Hadden surmised.

Meredith shrugged. "My dad…when I was little, before he left, he took care of me most of the time. He had to, because my mom was always at work, and he played with me and talked to me and hugged me and whatever. My mother didn't, and when my dad left…I wanted that affection from her, but she didn't give it, so I just—learned to deal without it." Until she'd figured out that boys would touch her, give her attention, for a little while. But then it had ended and so she'd found another boy and another, and it had never been enough. Until Derek. "I thought…I thought it meant that she didn't love me, but she did, in her own way. She just didn't know how to show me in the way I needed.

"My mother…the last few months she was alive, she didn't recognize me often. She was mostly reliving her residency—my childhood and the years right around my parents' divorce. She told me things because she didn't know I was me, and…I see things differently now. Things that I didn't understand when I was little…they make more sense now. My mother was…really very unhappy, and insecure. She was incredibly talented and excellent at her job, but in her personal life…she wasn't happy. She wasn't happy, but it wasn't my fault. She loved me, the best she could."

Dr. Hadden wrote furiously in her notebook. "You've been thinking about your mother a lot, haven't you?"

Meredith nodded. "The hospital thing on Friday night—it made me remember her. Good memories, and some bad ones, too. It was…rough. It was harder than I'd expected, but…Derek was there, and he helped."

"Derek?" Dr. Hadden repeated, surprised. "I thought you had decided that you weren't going to go with Derek?"

"I wasn't," Meredith replied. "I mean—I didn't. I didn't go with him. But he was there, too." She paused and smiled at the memory, and before she could stop the words from escaping, she confessed, "He tried to kiss me."

"He tried to kiss you?" Dr. Hadden echoed. "And that's how he helped you deal with your mother?"

"No!" Meredith cried. "He tried to kiss me goodnight…after everything else. After we'd talked, and after he asked me to dance."

Dr. Hadden wrinkled her forehead. She was nowhere near Derek's level when it came to figuring out what Meredith was _really_ trying to say. "He asked you to dance?"

"He saved me from being bored to death by my mother's old colleagues," Meredith offered by way of explanation. At the therapist's blank expression, she sighed and clarified, "Derek—Derek doesn't dance."

"Ah," Dr. Hadden said, as though Meredith had finally given her something to go on. "So that was a move very out of character for him?"

"He said he was trying to show me," Meredith smiled. "And…I was nervous. Really nervous. But we danced, and it…it was really, really nice."

"What was nice?" Dr. Hadden asked. "Specifically."

"Being with Derek," Meredith replied immediately, then realized that that was probably still a little too vague. But it was true—how could she pick one specific thing that made it so great? It wasn't just the way he held her, the way he looked at her, the way he made her heart beat faster with a smile. It was just…_Derek_. "Pretending that things were okay," she added. "It made me feel safe, and wanted, and…like it could work."

Dr. Hadden frowned. "You and Derek aren't together." Meredith had expected that. She'd predicted it the same night she'd danced with Derek. Mentally stable and functional people don't imagine their problems away with people they're trying to get over. And maybe didn't want to get over.

"I know," Meredith assured her. "But we _could_ be."

The therapist didn't seem so keen to share Meredith's hopes. "Why didn't you let him kiss you?"

Meredith had been asking herself the same question all weekend. She wasn't sure she'd completely worked it out for herself yet, but she was willing to throw out the theory she'd developed so far. "Derek…" she began slowly, "Derek can be perfect and charming and amazing, and when he's like that, I believe, I really believe that he adores me and loves me and everything he promises me is going to come true." She stopped and bit her lower lip, shaking her head slightly.

"But…Derek isn't always like that. He…he's a little dark and twisty too, sometimes, and he has this mean streak that shows every once in a while…and that's the Derek that hurts me. That's the Derek that I'm always afraid is going to show up and turn everything upside down again."

She'd definitely gained Dr. Hadden's interest now. "What do you mean?" she prodded.

"When we fought, the last time…I told him I'd been ready, before Addison," Meredith explained. "And I was—I'd never believed that I could have the things I was dreaming of with Derek, but I believed it, and I wanted it…and then his wife showed up and he picked her and nothing has been the same since. Everything—everything that's happened with me and Derek, it's all been shaded by that, and I think…I think that's what's kept me back. I haven't let myself trust him again because I'm so afraid that he's going to pull another secret wife out and choose her."

It was nothing Dr. Hadden probably hadn't already figured out, nothing they hadn't skated around discussing a few times in previous sessions, but Meredith knew that finally admitting it out loud was a big deal. Dr. Hadden's please smile confirmed as much. "Do you think that's what happened with Rose? That she was like finding out he was married all over again?"

"Maybe," Meredith nodded. "He…the morning I found out about Rose, he'd been at my house showing me blueprints for a home he wanted to build for us. He'd already told me months ago that he wanted a house and kids and this perfect life…and it scared me. He thinks…I think he thinks that I didn't want it, but I _did_. I just…I didn't want to want it too much, you know? I didn't want to lose it all again, like I did when Addison came…"

"And you felt like you did, when you found out about Rose," Dr. Hadden concluded. "You didn't let him kiss you because you're afraid of hoping again and being hurt, is that it?"

"I guess so, yeah," Meredith frowned slightly. This wasn't going the way she wanted it to; she _was_ afraid of being hurt again, afraid of Derek turning on her again, but she felt like she wasn't being fair, wasn't making Dr. Hadden see why, exactly, Meredith was being tempted by her feelings again. "But…I really think it could be different this time. He's not married. He's not with Rose. I think—I think she was his Finn."

"Finn?" Dr. Hadden repeated, her expression showing her confusion.

"Finn—he was our vet," Meredith reminded her—surely she'd mentioned Finn before? She'd thought she had—but Dr. Hadden's blank expression made her think that might have neglected to mention him. "Doc's vet—the dog Derek and I shared. I dated him for a few weeks. It was different than Rose; Derek was still married to Addison when I started dating Finn. And he was a really great guy—he was patient, and caring, and he wasn't scared off by the dark and twisty. He was—he was everything I _should _have gone for. He was perfect for me, except that he wasn't Derek. When I broke up with Finn, he told me Derek would hurt me again, and I knew he was right, but it didn't matter, because I knew Derek was the one for me. I'd known it all along, but I think it just took Finn for me to see that no one, no matter how great they were, was going to be what Derek is for me. Derek—Derek hated it. He hated that I was with someone else."

"Like you hated that he could be with Rose?"

"And Addison," Meredith nodded. "Rose is still different from Finn, because Derek was…sort-of with me when she happened, but I think it's the same idea. It took her for him to realize what he'd always known, to be sure. He says that he knows now. He's telling me that he only wants me, and he's…actually acting like it. He's not threatening me with other women or creating hypothetical situations where he meets a woman who wants what he does. He's…he's trying. He's trying so hard to be patient, and I'm trying so hard to be better…"

"For you or for him?" Dr. Hadden interjected.

"For me," Meredith replied quickly, truthfully. She _was_ doing this for herself, but part of making herself happy, she was beginning to think, was always going to involve Derek. "And for us—me and Derek. Because…I know you're not sure, but I really think…I think Derek is a good thing for me. He hasn't always been, but he makes me happy, and…I want to be happy."

"What about that mean streak you're so worried about?" Dr. Hadden asked. "Is that going to be a good thing for you?" Meredith had been meeting with her long enough now to know that this wasn't an attack, like she'd first thought, but a question designed as a reality check, something to keep Meredith honest, focused on what was, not what she imagined could be.

"No," Meredith acknowledged. She'd thought about that more than anything, and she knew it was one of her greatest fears about Derek. But she'd also been trying to come up with strategies, solutions—trying to find a way to open herself to the idea of trusting him again. "But I've hurt Derek, too. And I think—I think if we could trust each other enough to talk, we wouldn't hurt each other nearly as much. Almost every time we hurt each other, it's because we hid something or held something in until it came out in words we didn't mean. I mean—if I talked to Derek half as openly as I'm talking to you now—it would mean the world to him. He thinks I shut him out, that I don't trust him…and I don't, not completely. But if I could…I could tell him things. Things I _want_ to tell him. And we could be better. We could work."

Dr. Hadden closed her notebook and leaned forward with a knowing smile. "Why don't you go ahead and ask me whatever it is you're skirting around, Meredith? We are on a time limit here."

Meredith reached instinctively for her watch, looking down with a frown when her hand circled around her bare wrist. She must have forgotten to put her watch back on after her last surgery. "I know I still have a long way to go in therapy," she began hesitantly, "but would it be awful…I mean…would it set me back? If…and that's a big if…if Derek and I did give things another shot, maybe before I'm all fixed here…would it hurt me? The progress I'm making here—would it be counterproductive if I _did_ decide that I wanted to start working on things with Derek while I'm still working on me?"

"Do you want to do that?" Dr. Hadden asked.

"He asked me to dinner tonight," Meredith said. "I told him no…but part of me wanted to say yes." She didn't tell Dr. Hadden how close she'd come to saying yes. She'd spent the entire day almost saying yes. She'd noticed Derek staring at her all through lunch—even though she was sure he'd thought his glances were completely covert—and she'd seen him watching her surgery from the gallery. Even when he wasn't around, his invitation stayed with her, and the little voice that said yes had gradually gotten louder and louder, until she'd found herself stopping by his office on her way out of the hospital to see if she could change her answer. Her heart had sunk when she realized that he was in surgery, and she'd told herself that was a sign, proof she wasn't meant to go with him—but she knew that if he'd been there, she'd probably be on her way to meet him when she finished her therapy session.

"He's all I've thought about since Friday night," she confessed. "I don't trust him, yet. Not completely. But he's really trying, and I'm trying, and I really think we can figure it out this time. I miss him. I don't want to be alone anymore. I know it wouldn't be perfect—we have a lot to work on—but it would be _something_. I—I'm not saying that I'm _definitely_ ready to try again, but if—when—I decide that I might be—I just want to know that being with him isn't going to set _me_ back. So—could I? Could I try to work on us, too?"

"Meredith, that's a choice you're going to have to make for yourself," Dr. Hadden said. "You know I can't tell you what to do; that isn't my place—"

"I know that," Meredith interrupted her. "But I'm asking for your professional opinion, and you _can_ give me that. Do you _think_ I'm making enough progress that it _could_ work if I tried to bring Derek back into my life?" As though he'd ever really left it.

Dr. Hadden pressed her lips together and studied Meredith for several long moments. Finally, she took a deep breath and spoke, slowly and seriously. "You're making excellent progress, Meredith. I'm especially encouraged by your thoughts about your mother, and your willingness to identify the roots of your issues with trusting Derek. The level of self-awareness and reflection you're exhibiting is much stronger than this time last week, and that's very, very good. I'm also glad that you recognize your continuing need to meet with me.

"In my opinion, _if_ you continue to work like you have been, show the dedication to yourself that you have in the past few weeks, you should continue to see progress no matter what you decide about Derek. But it would be extremely unethical for me to let you leave here today without warning you of the potential problems. _If_ you enter a relationship with Derek again and convince yourself that everything is fixed and that you _don't_ need to work through your issues anymore, you're setting yourself up for a major setback, another very painful breakup, and quite a few more sessions with me. You could very well end up in a worse place than you were when you came to me."

Meredith looked away, drawing her knees to her chest. She hugged them close and fixed her eyes on a point on the opposite wall as she chewed her lower lip. She could do both. She could get better, be a healthier, stronger Meredith…and be with Derek, too. She didn't _have_ to have one first and then the other; they weren't mutually exclusive. She could be with Derek without hurting herself—couldn't she? He made her happy. She wanted to be happy. But—what if they tried again, and Derek's mean streak made a reappearance? What if they were fine for a few weeks or months, long enough to lull her into a false sense of security, and he got tired of being patient, thought her progress was still too slow for him?

She tried to assure herself that it wouldn't happen; Derek had exhibited incredible patience lately, and she'd already told herself—told Dr. Hadden—that she'd worked out a solution: _talking_ to Derek. It seemed simple—talking to Derek, letting him in her head—if he knew, really _knew _what she was dealing with, not just…maybe halfway garnered an idea from the awkward metaphors and vague comments that Meredith typically offered as conversation…then she was sure his frustration with her would yield to compassion and support. Even today, he'd wanted her to talk to him, to trust him. If she could…if she did…she was convinced it would make all the difference. She didn't have to do this all by herself; if she would just trust him, he'd be with her. She wouldn't be alone anymore. _If_ she would trust him. And that was the problem. The _if_.

"Do you want to tell me what you're thinking?" Dr. Hadden's gentle voice brought Meredith from her thoughts.

"I want this," Meredith was surprised to hear her voice crack; she was more surprised when tears sprung to her eyes and threatened to spill. "Me and Derek—I want it. I _know_ we can be together and work. I _know_ we can be happy, and I want that. I want it so badly, and I don't…I don't know how to have it."

"This is scary. I know how frightening this is for you," Dr. Hadden said softly. "You have been hurt by every person you've loved in your life, including Derek. Your experiences make you doubt, make you set yourself up for the inevitability of failure, even as you're trying to convince yourself for a better outcome. It's extremely difficult to overcome that voice inside that tells you not to risk the hurt again, but do you remember what I told you a few weeks ago, Meredith? For it to be worthwhile, you have—"

"To take a leap of faith," Meredith finished with a wry smile. "That hasn't worked out so well for me in the past."

"I know," Dr. Hadden said soothingly. "And I can't promise you that the next time will have different results, and I can't make the decision for you. We can have this discussion tonight, Friday night, next week, the week after, and I'm never going to be able to tell you what to do or what will happen. When you're ready to take that chance, you might get hurt again. You might find yourself on the path to a functional, satisfying relationship with Derek. I don't know, and neither do you. You _won't_ know until you try. Think about the other night, when Derek asked you to dance. You said you were nervous then—you didn't know what could happen, but you took a chance. You did it anyway—and it seems like it paid off pretty well for you."

"That was dancing," Meredith shook her head stubbornly. She _had_ been nervous about it, but it was a dance—it wasn't plunging back into a relationship with…_caravans_ of baggage attached. "That wasn't...it wasn't a _leap_. A step, or maybe a small skip. I didn't have much to lose."

"But you had something," Dr. Hadden pointed out. "Look, Meredith, you'll know when you're ready to make your choice, and I'm absolutely not telling you to rush a decision of this magnitude, but you basically have two choices about your life—not Derek, your _life._ You can keep wanting but not acting and spend a few more years in therapy, which you know, will reflect nicely on my ten-year-old's college fund, but frankly, I'd rather get you to a place where you can enjoy your life, which brings us to option number two. You can take the risk of being hurt, jump anyway, and go from there, good or bad. But I promise you, you're going to stay unhappy and unfulfilled as long as you're not willing to act on your own life."

"I am acting!" Meredith protested. "You said it yourself—I showed outstanding self awareness and insight! You said I'm making progress!"

"You are," Dr. Hadden agreed. "And I think you're on the verge of a major breakthrough—_if_ you're willing to attempt some big jumps."

Meredith huffed a sigh of frustration. Her enthusiasm for therapy tonight had slowly waned, and now she just felt…drained. She knew, reluctantly, that Dr. Hadden was right; nothing would change until she made the effort. But "leap of faith" hardly told her _how_ to have what she wanted with Derek—except, it told her everything. She knew how to make their relationship work this time—by talking, giving and taking, compromising, standing up for what she needed from him, being more perceptive of what Derek needed from her to feel like she valued him. But getting there—that meant trusting him, and that—that was going to take a giant leap of faith. There was no easy way to get there, nothing she could do or say to guarantee a positive outcome—it just had to be done. She wanted it. She was on the precipice, knowing that all that stood between her and maybe-happiness was a step forward. She wanted it. She wanted him. She knew how to have him. What she didn't know was how to make herself take that jump, to overcome the fear driving her back from the edge of uncertainty, paralyzing her where she stood, just waiting…waiting for something to give her the final push over the edge.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: I am exhausted. Seventeen pages in two days, plus the seven and a half I got done Sunday. This chapter clocks in the longest yet at just under 10,500 words. This part, and the next two, have been planned for months, and I can't believe I'm actually writing them now. This chapter is...a lot. I put a lot of hard work and time into this, including staying up late to do a cursory proof read so I could get it posted. Please, please, please, take the time to comment after you've read this (and seriously? If you care enough to add this to your story alerts...care enough to leave me a quick review.) I...really feel like I've earned reviews (positive or negative) after this--this chapter is what I've been building up to for 50,000 words, and I'd really like to know what you all think and whether you think it's worth dredging through the other ten parts. The next part may take a little longer to get up--you can find a link to my livejournal on my profile, and I'll probably leave status updates there, if you really need to know when I'll update again. So read, I hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think. Did I mention that I'm really proud of this chapter and would love reviews?**

"Good work, Dr. Grey."

Meredith beamed as she joined Derek at the sink and turned the faucet on, sending a strong jet of water cascading steadily into the basin. "Thank you, Dr. Shepherd," she replied, unwrapping a fresh bar of soap and working it into a thick lather on her hands. "That was…amazing."

Derek had ambushed her within minutes of her arrival at the hospital that morning, quickly informing her that he'd traded Mark for her (apparently Mark would rather have Izzie anyway—Derek wouldn't punch him for lechery directed at _Izzie_). Forget Meredith's insistence on _not_ getting special treatment, he'd said, he _had _to have her for his surgery this morning. As he'd explained the case to her, grilling her with questions to justify her inclusion as a learning experience, she'd understood why. Trigeminal neuralgia was a rare condition anyway, but Derek's patient was a seventeen-year old girl presenting with classic symptoms, unresponsiveness to drug therapy, and _without_ a history of hypertension or MS. It was almost unheard of—Derek would almost certainly be asked to write about it for one of the neurosurgical journals. The medicine aside, however, Mara was a sweet girl who lived in chronic pain, and had come to Derek in search of something, anything, that could offer relief from her constant agony. Meredith hoped she'd find it.

"Do you think it will work?" Meredith asked. Derek had performed a craniectomy to expose Mara's brain, and carefully pulled back the dura before asking Meredith to identify the area of concern. She'd seen the spot they thought might be the problem on Mara's MRI films, and had quickly found the artery irritating the trigeminal nerve. Derek had gently maneuvered to isolate the nerve, separating it from the vessels with a small piece of Teflon material that remained in Mara's brain, and then he'd stepped back. Meredith had been floored when he instructed her to close. He was definitely giving her special treatment, but she'd be insane if she complained. He'd patiently guided her through the rest of the procedure, allowed her to drill the screws to secure the titanium plate that would fill in the hole left by the piece of Mara's skull that had been removed, and waited to supervise every last suture. It was only when Meredith had finished and backed away from the table that the reality of what she'd done had hit her and she'd started to shake. She'd looked to Derek, and though she couldn't see the rest of his face, the creases at the corners of his eyes betrayed the proud smile hidden behind his surgical mask. To say that it had been incredible was an understatement.

"I hope so," Derek replied. "Microvascular decompression is effective about ninety percent of the time, and my personal success rate with the surgery is a little higher. It does concern me that she's already gone through PRGR and PBM without any long-lasting pain relief, but the procedure we did today has higher success rates, and the results should last longer. She's young, strong—I think her chances are good. Now, Dr. Grey, what is our post-op plan for Mara?"

"Put her on analgesics, probably a morphine drip," Meredith answered. "Keep her in ICU tonight and monitor her for complications and side-effects."

"And what could those be?" Derek questioned.

"On the lighter end, dizziness and nausea from the anesthesia," Meredith recited by rote as she rinsed the last of the soap from her hands. "Double vision, hearing loss, dysphagia, facial paralysis. Unlikely but still possible: CSF leaks, seizures, stroke."

"Very good, Dr. Grey," Derek praised. "I'll assign an intern to monitor her tonight. I know you don't want to spend your Friday night at the hospital."

Meredith didn't miss the suggestion in his tone. "Mm," she threw him an amused look as she shut off the water and reached for a paper towel. "I don't want to spend my Friday night going out with a certain neurosurgeon either." Except…she did. Might. He hadn't asked her, but she did…_might_…want to. She couldn't—her Friday night was booked for therapy—but it wasn't inconceivable that she might _want_ to say yes.

Derek feigned innocence as he dried his own hands. "What makes you think a certain charming neurosurgeon was going to _ask_ you to go out with him?"

She was tempted to point out that she'd never used to word "charming", that that was his own egotistical modifier. "Hm, I wonder," she replied dryly. "Maybe the flowers that showed up at my house last night when I got home from work."

She'd been halfway expecting them; they'd been arriving every three or four days like clockwork. She'd gotten home from therapy Tuesday night, ready to collapse on her bed and sleep, only for Izzie to yell down the stairs that "someone" had sent her flowers again. It had been a single flower this time, a vibrant orange tiger lily, but it had withered quickly. She'd found the first fallen petal on her dresser when she'd awoken yesterday morning for work and mused that Derek would probably be sending a replacement soon. She hadn't even mentioned the dying flower to him when she'd seen him a few hours later, but a full arrangement of white lilies had been delivered minutes after she'd fished leftovers out of the fridge for dinner. She wasn't sure how he'd known, how he always seemed to know…but she liked it.

"Maybe he's just trying to be nice, and you're misinterpreting his friendly gestures," Derek suggested.

Meredith quirked an eyebrow at him skeptically. "No, I'm pretty sure he's got more than friendly in mind."

"Me too," Derek grinned, tugging his scrub cap off and crumpling it in his fist. "He'd be crazy to settle for just friends with you."

Meredith felt a smile pull at the corners of her mouth. "What if just friends was all I wanted?" she asked as he started to walk past her toward the door.

He stopped and leaned in, bringing his lips to her ear as his voice dropped to the low, husky murmur he liked to use on her, the one he knew made her knees go weak. "He'd have to change your mind."

She hoped he didn't hear the sharp breath she gasped as she struggled to keep her composure. "And how would he do that?" she asked.

He smirked, satisfied with himself for rattling her, and his voice resumed its normal tone. "I'm not sure," he said thoughtfully. "But he might start by asking if you'd let him buy you coffee after you got out of a three-hour surgery together."

"Are you asking?" she quipped.

"Do you want me to be asking?" he returned playfully.

Yes. No. She wanted to, but part of her still hesitated. It was just coffee—she could handle coffee, couldn't she? It wasn't like they'd even be going anywhere, just hopping on the elevator for a twenty-second ride, down to the cart on the second floor of the atrium. He'd tease her, like he always had, about her insistence on only drinking coffee from that cart—which had the same offerings as the cafeteria—even though _everyone_ knew that the cafeteria coffee was unpalatable—she and Derek couldn't always be trusted with each other in elevators—but he _had_ been good about keeping his hands to himself. It was coffee—just coffee—and it could be a step in the right direction; she'd been perfectly stagnant since admitting to herself and her therapist that she did, in fact, want to be with Derek. Maybe three days was long enough to sit still; maybe it was time to take the tiniest step forward, to test the waters and see if she was as ready as she thought she might be. It would just be coffee…but…

"You're not very good for my ego when you give me that deer-in-the headlights look," Derek told her. "If you don't want to, just tell me."

"I'm thinking," Meredith protested. "I don't…I don't know if I don't want to…"

He laughed softly and smiled at her. "Think about it," he said. "We need to go talk to Mara's family. You can let me know what you decide after we're done with them."

She followed him out of the scrub room, staying a few steps behind him as they made their way to the lobby. She hadn't met Mara's family before going into surgery, but as they approached, a middle-aged couple and a girl around Mara's age stood up, hands clutched with one another tightly, their expressions a mixture of hope and fear that Meredith had grown accustomed to seeing in patients' families. She liked days like today, when she could actually watch the fear drain away, replaced by joy and relief and gratitude. She stood back and listened as Derek reviewed the surgery with Mara's parents and the girl--who turned out to be Mara's older sister--assuring them that Mara had done remarkably well, and that the outcome of the surgery might be able to be determined soon after she woke up from the anesthesia. Meredith loved Derek's way with patients and their families; it would have been easy for him, she imagined, to become the egotistical, arrogant doctor she teasingly accused him of being. He was brilliant—one of the best—but he hadn't forgotten the importance of a good bedside manner. He was kind, and patient, and paid close attention to the family's concerns, answering their questions gently and thoroughly, as though he had all the time in the world to sit with them, no other patients to see, no thoughts or obligations beyond their daughter and her well-being. It was moments like that that made Meredith remember exactly why she loved him.

When Mara's parents had both exhausted their supply their questions, Meredith went with Derek as he escorted them to the recovery wing to sit with Mara. After Derek closed the door to Mara's room, he turned to Meredith expectantly. "Well?"

"Well what?" she stalled. She'd been so occupied watching him work his comforting charm on Mara's family that she'd forgotten to think about whether she should let him buy her coffee.

"I'm tired," Derek said. His eyes echoed his words, but Meredith could tell he wasn't sleepy, just—achy from standing up in virtually the same position for over three hours. "I'm going to get coffee. I want you to come with me, and I want to buy you coffee, too, if you'll let me. So…" he paused and smiled at her in that adoring way of his, "are you coming?"

Yes. No. Damn it, why couldn't she decide? She didn't want to be hurt again, but she _wanted_ him, and it was _just_ coffee. He couldn't hurt her with coffee, short of spilling it and _literally_ burning her—if she felt like it was too much, she didn't have to let it go any further. She wasn't committing to anything but free coffee. She could do this—she could. She…she would. She had to move sometime, and this was as good a time as any. She was being ridiculous—it was _one _cup of coffee. She'd do it. She'd go with him.

She took a deep breath. "I—"

Before she could say yes, Derek's pager buzzed against his hip. He glanced down at it and a frown creased his forehead as he looked back to her. "Damn," he breathed. "Rain check on the coffee, okay? I've got to take this page. Let's go, you're coming with me."

He took off for the stairs, his long legs covering so much ground with each stride that Meredith nearly had to run to keep up with him. "What is it?" she asked as he pushed through the stairwell door.

"I don't know," he replied, bounding down the steps two or three at a time. "The ambulance is already here; we need to hurry."

In a matter of seconds, they were on the ground floor, Meredith right on Derek's heels as he shoved through the ER doors, bursting into a frenzy of activity and a cacophony frantic voices. "Trauma bay one, Dr. Shepherd!" one of the ER nurses called. Derek nodded in acknowledgement and turned abruptly to enter the room on his right.

"What do we have?" he demanded, immediately asserting his presence and command of the situation. Meredith stepped to his side, out of his way but available to help as soon as she could ascertain a place for herself. The room was full with nurses and doctors, making it difficult for Meredith to see the patient at all. She craned her neck and stood on her tiptoes to no avail, but then a nurse moved to the side, and in that moment, Meredith's world stopped.

Her heart leapt to her throat and her lungs suddenly felt completely devoid of air, even as she filled them with a sharp gasp. Her stomach lurched, threatening to send bile up her throat, and her legs went weak, nearly collapsing under the sudden dead weight of her body. She could hear blood pounding in her ears, knew, then, that her heart was beating, but it wasn't doing its job; her body was consumed by the burning need for oxygen. She was starving for air, couldn't breathe, couldn't think…couldn't breathe…couldn't stop her body from trembling all over…couldn't…couldn't…

The child lying unconscious in front of her was soaked to the bone. Blonde hair, the towheaded kind that most kids—Meredith included—lost as they grew up, hung heavy with water, tangled, matted to her forehead. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes fluttered shut in stark contrast to her too-pale skin, its hue too white, almost ghastly gray. Her mouth was covered by a triangular mask, attached to a bag, steadily deflating…inflating…deflating with each squeeze of a nurse's hand, pumping air into her tiny body. Through the clear mask, Meredith saw her lips, not healthy and rosy pink, but a frightening muted blue. Over the sound of her own ragged, strained attempts to breathe, Meredith heard the ER doctor relating the case to Derek.

"Three year old female found submerged in her bathtub. Underwater as long as eight minutes, CPR started twenty minutes ago, still unresponsive."

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion; Meredith watched in horror as the ER doctor used the heel of his hand to perform chest compressions, pausing only for the nurse to breathe for the little girl. Derek was bent over the child, grasping the bend of her elbow, pressing his fingers into her wet flesh in a desperate search for a pulse. "Damn it, this kid isn't coming back," he muttered.

His voice broke through Meredith's stunned trance, and she turned to him, shocked, appalled by the darkness and hopelessness she heard in his voice. "Derek!" she hissed.

His head snapped in her direction, his eyes widening at the sight of her by his side, as though he'd forgotten she was there and was realizing it for the first time. He looked from her back to the child, then glared at her again. "Dr. Grey, I can handle things from here. You can go," he said. His words were cold, devoid of any of the familiarity and warmth he'd shown her just minutes before.

She took a step back from him, unnerved by the wild, haunted expression she read in his eyes. This wasn't right…this wasn't Derek. "What? Why?" she stammered.

"You shouldn't be here," he insisted firmly. His gaze shifted back to the motionless toddler, and understanding hit Meredith with a leaden force that left her reeling in its wake.

It wasn't a three year old girl on the table for him. It was Meredith. She saw it clearly now, took him in, the whole traumatized picture: the shaking in his shoulders; the uncoordinated, fumbling movements of his normally deliberate hands; the quiver in his chin; his blanched complexion; the rasping of his own breaths…and his eyes. She'd never seen that look in his eyes before, and she knew immediately that she _never_ wanted to see it again. In Derek's mind, in his eyes, he was losing Meredith again—even as everyone around him struggled to revive a very real child, Derek could only see Meredith's drowned, dead body in front of him.

He wasn't alone; Meredith suddenly had a very good idea of what _she_ must have looked like, what must have been done in the effort to save _her _life. It was frightening and surreal, but she couldn't tear herself away from the child whose fate she'd nearly shared.

"Dr. Grey, leave the room!" Derek barked angrily when she failed to move after his first order. "There's a clear conflict of interest for you here—"

She recoiled from his biting tone; this was not the Derek she'd seen lately. This Derek was lashing out at her without provocation, turning on her without a second's warning—this was the Derek whose return she'd dreaded. Instinct kicked in, and she defended herself the only way she knew how—striking back. "And there's not for you, Derek?" she challenged.

He glared at her again, anger and something else she couldn't yet identity fueling the wildness in his stare as he set his jaw and grit his teeth. "_Dr. Grey_, I wasn't making a suggestion!" he roared at her. "Get out of here, _now_!"

She held his stare for the three seconds it took for tears to flood her eyes, then shook her head in disbelief and fled the trauma bay. She pushed blindly through the crowded ER, not caring who saw her in her visibly upset state, and disappeared into the stairwell to escape. Tears blurred her vision as she ascended the steps to the second floor, struggling to catch her breath with each footfall. She felt sick; she couldn't breathe; she was definitely going to be sick. She hurried to the women's bathroom, clasping one hand over her mouth as she rushed into the last stall, where she had the least chance of being overheard from the hallway. She barely had time to collapse to her knees before she gagged and retched, losing what remained of her breakfast with a strong lurch. She sobbed as her body was overtaken by heave after heave, long after her stomach was emptied. The acrid taste of vomit lingered in her mouth, and her throat was scorched from the insurgence of bile. When her stomach had calmed and she was certain the dry heaves had subsided, she crawled forward on shaky hands and knees to flush the toilet, sending the evidence of her foolishness spiraling away, out of sight. Not out of mind.

She drew her knees to her chest and leaned forward, placing her head between them as she gasped huge gulps of air and allowed her tears to burn thin trails down her face. How—how had she been so stupid? She'd almost—almost trusted him, almost let herself give him another chance. She'd been right not to let him too close, because this…this was what she'd feared all along. She'd known he'd hurt her again, but she'd let her guard down, and he'd proved her right. He'd lulled her into false security…given her an amazing surgery, flirted with her and made her feel like he really cared…and in a second, that had disappeared. He'd turned on her in the blink of an eye, yelled at her, berated her…treated her like an unruly child…

The child. Oh god. She disgusted herself. A child—a beautiful, innocent child—was lying downstairs dying, and she was huddled on a bathroom floor crying because of Derek. Derek didn't think she—the child—was going to make it. And that—that wasn't fair. That girl had done nothing wrong—she didn't deserve to die, not when Meredith had lived. Meredith didn't wish _she_ had died—but of the two of them, it seemed so much more cruel for someone so young, someone who hadn't had a chance to become screwed up and dysfunctional and dark and twisty, to lose a life that had barely begun. It wasn't fair. That girl—that girl had so much ahead of her, so much to hope for, and she was dying. Meredith's life had been spared, but what did she have to show for it? A promising fledgling career, but a heart that refused to let go of a man who seemed determined to break it time and time again. She was her mother after all.

Meredith broke down with a fresh supply of tears. She wept for her mother. For the child maybe already dead down in the crowded trauma room downstairs. For the pending death of her dreams with Derek, for herself. She lost track of how long she crouched in the stall sobbing, and stopped only when she'd cried hard enough that she made herself sick again. As she choked and spat the acid evacuating her stomach, she heard the door to the bathroom creak open and froze. A pair of heels clicked across the floor, and paused at one of the sinks underneath the large mirror. Meredith's thoughts raced; she couldn't be caught in here. She couldn't have the entire hospital knowing that Meredith Grey had been bawling like a baby in the women's restroom, especially once the news of Derek's outburst at her made the rounds. Her body was weak, exhausted from the endless dry heaves; her legs felt like jelly, and her head ached with a splitting pain fit to rival her worst hangover. Meredith could see the woman's shoes under the door, and hoped that whoever the woman was, she wouldn't notice Meredith crumpled on the floor.

She waited until she could hear the woman's shoes hitting the tile again, then quickly rocked on her heels and stood up, catching herself on the metal hook protruding from the back of the door. Meredith took a moment to regain her balance before flushing the toilet again. She waited to hear the bolt slide to secure the other woman's stall before fleeing her own, stopping for only a few seconds to wash her hands and splash a little cold water on her hands. The hallway was empty except for a pair of nurses who seemed too engaged in their own conversation to notice Meredith. She breathed a sigh of relief and made her escape quickly, retreating toward the residents' lounge as quickly as she trusted her legs to carry her.

Meredith found the room empty and slowly made her way to her cubby. A pot of coffee, hours old—probably brewed by the first resident to arrive that morning—sat on the sidebar, and the smell assaulted Meredith's nostrils. She shut her eyes and placed a hand over her stomach, lifting her eyes in a silent plea to _not_ throw up again. After a moment, the urge passed, and Meredith reached into her cubby for her toothbrush, toothpaste, and—noticing a few suspiciously-colored splatters on her top—a change of scrubs. The bathroom in the residents' lounge was small—just enough room for one—but it allowed Meredith to lock herself away from the threat of discovery. She washed her hands again before brushing her teeth, scrubbing and scouring her gums and tongue in what she was afraid would be a futile effort to rid her mouth of the taste of vomit. Finally, she tasted nothing but mint, and she rinsed her mouth a final time before throwing her toothbrush in the trashcan.

After she'd changed her scrubs and tossed the dirty ones into the laundry bin, she returned to the lounge and realized that she had nowhere to go. Her watch told her that it was nearly four in the afternoon. It had been almost an hour since Derek had thrown her out; it seemed impossible to believe that half an hour before that, they'd been teasing each other and flirting, seconds away from the first thing that they could remotely consider a date in weeks…maybe even months. She didn't know where Derek was now, whether the little girl had meant that their four-fifteen surgery had been pushed back, but unless he had her paged in the next few minutes, it was clear that he didn't want her around. She found the bottle of aspirin she kept in her purse and popped two, swallowing them dry before curling up on one of the worn, uncomfortable couches in hopes of quelling the waves of pain threatening to split her skull in two.

The minutes ticked by, and Meredith's thoughts gravitated to the girl again. Was she dead? Had they been able to bring her back? The others had been trying so hard to help her, but Derek…she'd never heard him so pessimistic about a patient, and a _child_. He'd sounded so certain that she wouldn't make it, that there wasn't a point in fighting. Meredith wondered how hard he'd fought when it was her own life in the balance—if he'd been so quick to resign her to death. They didn't talk about that day. She knew that he'd been the one to pull her out of the water, knew that he'd single-handedly given her CPR at the scene and in the ambulance, refusing to allow the paramedics near her until just before they arrived at the hospital. She didn't know much about what happened after that; she hadn't let Derek explain the medicine to her, hadn't read her own chart. She'd rather deal with her imagination, informed by her medical training, than know the actual facts of what it had taken to save her life. She did know that Derek hadn't been by her side when she woke up. Maybe he'd already counted her for dead.

_That day…you came out of the water…I spent the scariest hour of my life trying to breathe for you…I don't know if I can…I don't know if I want to keep trying to breathe for you_.

Maybe he'd already been tired. But someone…someone had cared enough, fought hard enough for her. She'd fought for herself. She'd come back for herself…for Derek…for them…but someone on the other side had fought for her, too. That child…she had no one to fight for her. Her parents, sure, but they didn't have the medical know-how to do anything. Derek did. But he didn't believe in her, like he hadn't believed in Meredith. He'd looked at that little girl and counted her as lost…just like Meredith. That girl…to the doctors, she was a patient, and they'd do their best—but they wouldn't do beyond their best. Meredith was one of their own. She was Ellis Grey's daughter. She was sure someone had gone beyond protocol, kept pumping drugs into her, kept shocking her longer than called for, kept trying until she responded—no one was going to try that hard for that child, and she deserved her life—she deserved someone to fight for her, maybe more than Meredith had. That child hadn't had a chance to give up on herself, probably didn't even know how to swim, wasn't equipped to fight for her own life—and Meredith, the only one who knew the struggle she must have endured, the only one who seemed to believe she had a chance, was banned from helping her, forced to leave her in the hands of someone who'd already lost faith in her.

Meredith looked up sharply as the door to the lounge creaked open slowly. Her breath caught in her throat as Derek appeared in the doorway. His eyes lit on her and she saw the worry drain from his face even as she braced herself for a fight.

"Meredith—" her name came out as a relieved sigh as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"Don't," she should have expected her voice to be hoarse, but she was surprised by how broken one word could sound.

Concern reclaimed his features as he frowned and took another step toward her. "Meredith—"

"Stop it!" she scrambled to her feet and backed away from him, making him halt his advance.

"At least let me explain—" he pleaded, running a hand over his face and back through his hair in one slow, weary motion.

"Explain what?" Meredith cried. "How you just gave up on her?"

His jaw dropped slightly. "I didn't give up on her—" he started in his own defense.

"You did!" Meredith insisted. "You looked at her and said she wasn't coming back, Derek, that she wasn't worth the effort to try to save her—"

Derek looked frustrated with her, but instead of snapping at her like she expected, he spoke slowly, softly. "She _wasn't_ coming back, Meredith."

"_I_ did!" she protested. "_I_ came back!"

"That child is not you, Meredith," he said firmly. "You were a cold water drowning. You were hypothermic. Your organs were protected; hers weren't. Her brain went without oxygen for too long—"

She felt her resolve to be angry with him losing strength; the effort of fighting with him was always exhausting. It didn't help that he was using medical fact, irrefutable truth that she _knew_, to argue with her. "There has to be something, Derek," she shook her head defiantly; she wasn't going to let him talk her down. "Pediatric patients recover from near-drowning better than adults do. But you wouldn't even try--"

"She's brain dead, Meredith," he said gently. He paused as her eyes widened in disbelief before continuing, "Go look at the scans yourself if you don't believe me. She has machines keeping her alive. She's not coming back from this."

Meredith refused to believe him. That little girl—she couldn't be gone. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for a child to lose her life when Meredith's had been spared. Meredith…she hadn't done anything to deserve living instead of a child who'd never even heard of scary and damaged. She met Derek's gaze and felt a rush of anger at the sympathy in his eyes. "She could have if you didn't give up the second you saw her," she accused him coldly. "Did you give up on me that quickly, too, Derek?"

She started to push by him in a bid for the door, but as she passed, he seized her by the wrist and yanked her to a stop. In a split second, his face was inches from hers, his eyes blazing with more venom than she'd ever seen in them. "Don't _ever_ say that again," he growled. "I _never_ gave up on you!"

She'd expected a reaction from him, but she was a little scared by the intensity in his voice. She refused to back down, though; fighting with him was preferable to letting him hurt her again. "You did," she shot back. "You got tired of breathing for me, remember?"

"_You _gave up, Meredith!" he snapped. "You went into that water, and _you _gave up—you gave up on yourself, on me, on everything we had together." His voice cracked and he shook his head as tears moistened his eyes. "You have _no _idea what I went through…if I hadn't gone in after you, you'd be dead, just like you wanted, right? You're the one who gave up, Meredith. Not me."

She'd gotten what she wanted now. She'd hurt him back, but Meredith didn't feel vindicated anymore. She didn't feel pleased with herself for picking a fight with him, didn't feel proud of the shots she'd thrown. She didn't want to argue with him anymore. She just felt…awful. She knew now what she'd seen in his eyes earlier, but had been unable to identify. It was fear, and pain, and it filled his eyes now and shook her to the core; she didn't like seeing him like this. Didn't like being the reason he looked so, so broken. He'd hurt her…but hurting him back didn't make her feel any better. They stared at each other silently, Meredith's steeled defenses slowly falling until all that remained was more hurting and more confusion. She couldn't deal with this now—she needed to get away. She focused on his fingers, wrapped around her wrist tightly, squeezing and clutching as though if he let go, she'd plummet back into the depths of the bay and be lost forever.

"Get your hands off of me." The words she'd planned to be emotionless and cold just sounded weak and…petulant at best.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded. "Run away? Give up again?"

Meredith laughed bitterly and wrenched her arm out of his grip. "Why not? It's what I do best, right?"

She stepped around him and he didn't try to stop her again; the door slammed shut behind her. She stalked the hallways for several minutes before she found herself on the fourth floor, down a seldom-used corridor outside an on-call room. Derek would know to look for her here, if he tried to follow her again; it had been one of their favorite places to slip away for sex because of its secluded location. He knew about her intern group's hideaway in the basement, too—he never went down there, but she'd told him that she did, and he might expect her to hide there. There was always the gallery, but he'd look for her there, too. Unless—a quick trip to the OR board alleviated Meredith's concern. Callie was performing some ortho procedure; it wasn't interesting enough for _anyone_ to watch, so she'd be alone, and Derek knew how she felt about ortho. He'd never think that she'd resort to voluntary observation of _ortho_ just to stay away from him.

She crept into the gallery and took a seat on the floor in front of the first row; she didn't want to take the chance that anyone in the OR would look up and see her. For now, this was her personal sanctuary, her hideout from Derek and emotions she didn't want to sort through. In the quiet of the deserted gallery, however, she realized that she couldn't escape her thoughts—or the image of Derek's pain-filled expression burned into her memory. Slowly, the sounds of machinery and voices below faded, replaced by her own rambling voice in her head as she started to process the events of the last few hours. She hated fighting with him—but from the beginning in the ER, he'd looked at her like she'd started it, like she'd dealt the first blow—and that wasn't true. She'd fought dirtier, maybe, but he'd started it with his attack in the trauma room. She realized how juvenile she sounded—did it matter who'd started it, who'd hurt who first? What mattered was that she'd been confronted with one of her biggest fears. Derek had shown his true colors; the Jekyll-Hyde transformation she always worried about had happened, and she'd seen his mean streak at its ugliest. She'd known he was too good to be true, that he'd turn on her again, hurt her again, just like before.

Except that it wasn't. It wasn't just like before. She set her jaw stubbornly against the part of her that seemed inclined toward fairness and rationality. He'd had no right to talk to her the way he did—but she couldn't forget the look on his face when he'd found her in the lounge. He'd seemed so…_thankful_…to see her, to see that she was safe and…_not_ lying on a gurney or under Elliot Bay. He'd lashed out at her—that much they couldn't deny—but couldn't she grant him some amount of forgiveness for extenuating circumstances? He'd been _fine_—better than fine—until they'd gone into that trauma room, and then they'd both been faced with one of the worst days of their lives. Could she really hold it against him—write him off completely—because he'd panicked when he'd effectively had to relive her death, especially when she'd reacted just as badly? She'd been upset, too; it wasn't just Derek's sudden harshness that had shaken her. She hadn't been able to handle seeing what she must have looked like, witnessing what must have been done to her body—her head knew it was a patient, but it had all been too close to her own situation, too real for her comfort, and _that_ was what had _really_ sent her to her knees in that bathroom stall. She'd never wanted to know. She'd never wanted to see how her moment of weakness had affected Derek, and now…now she had a pretty vivid picture of exactly what she'd done to him.

_I've hurt Derek, too. And I think—I think if we could trust each other enough to talk, we wouldn't hurt each other nearly as much. Almost every time we hurt each other, it's because we hid something or held something in until it came out in words we didn't mean..._

Had it really only been three days earlier that she'd tried to convince Dr. Hadden that she'd worked out the solution to her problems with Derek? It had seemed so simple then—just talk to him. And what had she done today? She'd run away at the first sign of trouble. She realized with a sharp twist of guilt that he'd come after her to talk. He'd wanted to explain, probably to apologize for the way he'd spoken to her—and _she'd_ turned on him. _She'd_ been the one to say hurtful things, to accuse him of giving up on her, of not caring whether she'd lived or died that day, and she'd _known_ that wasn't true. She hadn't cared. She'd just wanted him to hurt the way that she was hurting—as if he wasn't already.

They didn't talk about that day. Derek had wanted to, but Meredith hadn't been able to bring herself to tell him what had happened. It wasn't fair for her to accuse him of giving up; she'd been angry when she said it, but knew it wasn't true. He'd pulled her out in the first place, and if they'd have let him, she knew he would have been with her every second. They'd thrown him out of her room. That wasn't his fault. And she knew that he'd been with her mother when Ellis died, and that that was why Meredith had woken up to Cristina. He'd told her that, whispered it in her ear as he spooned his body against hers, that first night in the hospital. He hadn't said anything else until the next day, but she'd shut him down, pleaded with him not to force the conversation now. He'd agreed, and after he'd taken her home, there were arrangements to make for Ellis and a sense of normalcy to redefine and reclaim. With each day that had passed, Meredith had pushed the near-drowning to the back of her mind, refused to think about it, insisted instead on being positive and looking forward, and looking back, she figured that Derek had just been so happy to have her safe that he hadn't pressed her too hard. Without Derek trying to make her talk, it had been easy to pretend that that everything was okay, that they'd escaped the ordeal unscarred…most of the time.

_Meredith hadn't been sleeping well since 'the accident.' At first, she'd assured Derek that it was just the hospital bed, but on her second night home, she'd still found it difficult to get any rest. Her bruised ribs had made it nearly impossible for her to find a comfortable position, but she'd refused to tell Derek. He'd already blamed himself enough for her injuries, even though they both knew that the contusions were a necessary casualty to save her life. She'd woken up only an hour or so after falling asleep, a sharp pain in her side proving stronger than her exhaustion and dragging her back to consciousness._

_She'd lain still and silent for a few moments, trying to register the unfamiliar, muffled sound coming from behind her, until she'd realized that the noise coincided with the strange jolting movements against her back. Derek had been…crying. He'd made a valiant effort to stay quiet, but she'd felt every desperate, gasping gulp of air as he'd clutched her body to his, his chest rising and falling sporadically against her with each sob. _

"_Derek?" she'd murmured his name sleepily, and he'd frozen at the sound of her voice. He'd held his breath for a moment while he'd forced back any remaining tears, and then he'd leaned over her, crushing his lips against hers._

"_Go back to sleep," he'd whispered, trying so hard to sound positive for her, to hide the evidence that he'd just been crying. It had been useless; she'd tasted the salt in his kiss. "You need to rest."_

_She'd rolled over with great effort, taking care not to wince at the pain in her ribs as she'd settled on her right side. She'd resisted the urge to take his face in her hands; she'd known that his cheeks would be wet with tears, and his pride wouldn't have stood for her knowing that he'd been crying. She'd let him have that. "Hold me?" she'd asked instead, and he'd kissed her forehead as he'd carefully moved over her, settling on her side of the bed and spooning around her again. He'd drawn her gratefully back into his arms, and they'd both taken comfort in the touch. The next morning, neither of them had brought it up, and the incident passed without comment_.

It had become a pattern for them. They ignored their problems, swept them under the rug, convinced themselves that they were fine, just happy that they were both _alive_ and together, that that was _all_ that mattered. Meredith didn't cry in front of Derek, and he'd eventually stopped pushing her to talk about what had happened. They'd only mentioned it a handful of times—mostly notably, the night of the now infamous "I don't want to breathe for you" remark (as though she'd ever _asked_ him to breathe for her...), and a few weeks earlier, when the skydiver had reminded Meredith of the surreal nature of those first few weeks after cheating death.

_Remember when I was dead? Before I went in that water everything was so ... complicated. Hard. And then you pulled me out of the water ... and I came back to life. For a moment everything was so clear. As if the water had washed everything clean. Do you remember that?_

_I do_.

_Me too._

She hadn't seen it then, but now it seemed so obvious that she didn't know how she'd missed it. He'd been so hopeful—thought that maybe she was finally letting down the walls she'd erected against him, finally opening up about that horrible day. He'd wanted to talk—and she'd just shut him down again. No wonder the child today had affected them both so strongly. Her case hit too close to home for them both anyway, but especially when her death reopened wounds that neither Meredith nor Derek had healed. How _could_ they have healed, when they hadn't talked? Derek needed to talk about it to heal; Meredith didn't know if she could give it to him. How could she? How could she explain to him that she'd only given up for a _second_, so, so tired from the effort of fighting, and that _that_ second had been the one that mattered? How could she risk telling him what she'd seen…what she'd experienced…when she was terrified that he'd push her away, think she'd lost her mind if she told him the truth? But how could she expect anything to change, for them to have any shot at a future, if she _didn't_?

She wondered if her drowning had been Derek's Addison moment. The moment that he lost his faith in them. The moment that, no matter what came after, good or bad, his mind went back to in his darkest moments and asked whether it was all worth it. If it was worth the frustration, the pain, the hurt, to keep going, keep pursuing a relationship with Meredith when she—to the best of his knowledge—hadn't cared enough to swim.

_You gave up on yourself, on me, on everything we had together….you're the one who gave up, Meredith. Not me._

She hadn't given up, not on him. It was everything they had together, everything they _could _have, that had saved her…given her the drive to save herself. But he didn't know that—and how could she expect him to, if she'd never told him? How could she be angry with him for accusing her of giving up, of lashing out in fear of losing her again, if she'd never let him know the truth? Earlier this afternoon, she'd all but asked him to ask her out, and now—was she really ready to write him off? She'd seen his mean streak today, there was no doubt, but could she blame him for how he'd acted? Could he blame _her_? There was no way either of them could have foreseen that little girl coming into the ER today or the effect she would have on them. Today—today wasn't a deal-breaker. Today was—today was an opportunity to put her progress in therapy to the test, and she'd failed miserably. She'd been so confident that she could bring herself to _talk_ to Derek, to deal with his meanness like a mature adult—and instead she'd run. When he'd run after her—she'd picked a fight instead of trying to talk it out. She'd acted like the old Meredith, and even though Derek had been harsh—he'd realized it. He'd come after her, and she'd just pushed him away. She didn't want this. She didn't want to be this person. She didn't want to hurt anymore, and she didn't want to hurt Derek anymore.

Meredith looked up sharply as the doorknob rattled and bolted to her feet just as the door swung open and a man she recognized as one of the cardio fellows stepped inside. She peeked over her shoulder and realized that Callie was gone, and Erica Hahn was preparing to slice open the chest of a very different patient. How long had she been in here? She turned back to the confused fellow and smiled weakly. "I was just looking for…my watch," she made up a lie quickly. "I couldn't find it and I thought I might have left it up here after Dr. Torres's surgery—"

The man looked at her like she was crazy. She probably looked crazy. "You mean the watch that's on your arm?" he asked.

Meredith blanched as she glanced down at the silver watch very noticeably worn on her wrist. "Oh, yeah, that-um," she stammered. "This is my back up—it's my other watch, but…yeah, I don't see it here, so I'm just going to—go—" She felt mortified and rushed to escape the gallery. Her definitely not-missing watch read 5:30. She'd hidden in the gallery for another hour; only thirty minutes left that she had to avoid Derek—and if he'd made his four-fifteen surgery after all, that feat might be easier than expected.

She thought again about the little girl; she needed to see for herself that what Derek had said was true. The only problem was that she didn't even know the child's name; but she knew how to find out. "Hi," she said to the nurse stationed at the circular desk. "I need the charts for all of Dr. Shepherd's patients, please. Dr. Shepherd asked me to review them; I'll be monitoring them tonight."

The nurse turned and pulled a stack of five charts from the rack and handed them over to Meredith, who signed for them before hurrying around the corner. Once out of sight, she quickly flipped through them, ruling them out one by one—by age, gender, names she recognized—until she found it—the very last chart. Lacey Brennan. Room 2216.

Meredith found the room empty except for Lacey, lying perfectly still in the hospital bed as machines beeped and whirred around her. Meredith took a deep breath and sank into the chair opposite Lacey's bed, dropping the other four charts to the floor as she opened Lacey's in her lap. If she hadn't believed Derek and didn't believe what she could see with her own eyes, she believed what she read. This little girl was really gone; whoever Lacey had been—a tomboy who climbed trees or a girly girl who read fairytales and played dress-up and tea party with her doll—she wasn't there anymore. All that remained was the physical shell of her, dwarfed among the sterile white sheets and bulky life-sustaining machines. It had never seemed more ironic to Meredith—what life were those machines supporting?

As she slowly accepted that Lacey had succumbed to the same fate that had nearly claimed her own life, Meredith read further, trying to learn more about what had happened to the little girl. She certainly hadn't been accidentally knocked into the ocean the day after everything she valued in her life had been belittled by her mother. It was more tragic than that. Her babysitter had just…left her in the bathtub for a few minutes when the doorbell rang; when she'd returned, Lacey had been underwater. It was an accident, a stupid, completely preventable accident…and a child was gone for it.

"What are you doing in here?"

Meredith dropped the chart as her body shook, startled by Derek's voice. She looked up at him with wide eyes, afraid to speak after the _last_ things she'd said to him. "She's my patient, too."

"No, she's not," Derek disagreed. "I took you off the case. The other four charts you stole—they're still your patients, but you know—if you're trying to avoid me, you probably shouldn't tell the truth about what time it is when you sign out _all_ my charts. Or use your real name. It made it much easier to find you."

"I wanted to check on her," Meredith said softly.

Derek nodded slightly in a gesture of understanding. "Her parents are down the hall right now meeting with a counselor," he told her. "Signing the papers to take her off life support."

She swallowed the lump that rose in her throat and blinked back tears as her gaze returned to Lacey's body. It wasn't fair…

"Meredith…" Derek began hesitantly. "About earlier…I shouldn't have yelled at you like I did. I shouldn't have said the things I did. I shouldn't have…I shouldn't have done any of it. And you were right. I shouldn't have been on this case, either. It was a major conflict of interest for me, too. I'm sorry."

For what felt like the hundredth time that afternoon, Meredith couldn't breathe. Her eyes landed on her watch. 5:45. "I have to go," she said suddenly.

"Meredith—" Derek said desperately, stepping into her path. "I'm trying to apologize to you."

_You get that I'm saying I'm sorry, right?  
_

_You yelled at me for no reason, and then you walked away. And now you show up here…_

_From now on, you can expect that I'm going to show up. Even if I yell. Even if you yell. I'm always going to show up._

He was showing up. He was still trying. She…was running. Maybe she was giving up after all. "I have to go."

"Meredith—" he pleaded.

"I have to go," she repeated firmly. He sighed and stepped aside, letting her go. Letting her run. Maybe he was giving up too. She hurried into the resident's lounge and changed into her street clothes quickly, determined to get out of the hospital before he could change his mind and come after her again. On her way out the door, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were red and puffy, leaving no doubt that she'd spent most of the last few hours crying, and her bangs—which had been drenched with sweat during the endless dry heaves in the bathroom—were now flat and unruly, stuck to her skin in some places, protruding at odd angles in others. She looked like hell. It seemed appropriate, given how she felt.

An hour later, she sat numbly on the couch in her therapist's office. The drive to the office complex, followed by the half-hour she'd sat in the waiting room, had given Meredith enough time to crash under the weight of her emotions, and she was exhausted. She didn't know up from down anymore, and she wasn't sure how to begin explaining how her world had turned upside down in the span of a few hours. By default, she decided to continue her streak of regression, and fifteen minutes into her session, she had yet to say a word.

"Meredith—you're being very quiet tonight. It might help if you tell me what's going on," Dr. Hadden suggested.

Meredith's eyes flickered to the therapist's face and she sighed. "We lost a kid today."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Hadden replied genuinely. "I imagine it must be very hard to lose a patient. Especially a child."

"Derek and I fought. I finally got to see that nasty temper of his again," Meredith laughed bitterly. "I knew the dreamy part wasn't going to last—"

Dr. Hadden frowned. "So you're putting aside the idea of reconciling with Derek?"

"I can't…I can't be mad at him for it," Meredith shook her head. "Not really. I mean…I could have killed him at the time, but…I know where it was coming from. He was hurting…we were both hurting…I know both of us said things we didn't really mean…"

"Why were you hurting, Meredith?" Dr. Hadden asked gently.

"I…I almost died earlier this year," Meredith admitted after a long pause. "There was a major accident at the ferry docks—"

"I remember that," Dr. Hadden nodded. "I had a large influx of new patients after that day."

Meredith wasn't surprised; it was, after all, when she'd been given Dr. Hadden's card, even if she hadn't called for another few months. "They sent a team from the hospital to do triage at the scene—I was one of them. Derek was sent later. I was at the end of the dock taking care of a patient and he panicked…started flailing…I was knocked into the water."

She stopped to collect her thoughts. Her eyes were focused on the wall, but her peripheral vision caught Dr. Hadden watching her intently. "Derek…Derek thinks I didn't swim. I did. I just…couldn't keep it up, and I went under. Derek…Derek went in after me. He pulled me out…I was dead. They spent hours trying to resuscitate me before I finally woke up, and Derek…"

"Go on," Dr. Hadden prodded.

Meredith shook her head. This wasn't right. It didn't feel right. She'd never told anyone what had happened that day, and this—this wasn't how she'd imagined the first time sharing the story. Most of what had happened today had been unfair…she couldn't tell someone else what Derek should hear first. He deserved more than that. She knew what she needed to do. "I can't. I can't do this. I'm sorry."

"Meredith, don't give up now," Dr. Hadden urged. "This is important—"

"I'm not…I'm not giving up!" Meredith replied, a little more firmly than necessary, but then—Dr. Hadden didn't know how poorly-chosen the phrase "give up" had been. "I just…I can't tell you, not tonight. I'll schedule another appointment and tell you another time, but I can't…I can't be here right now…"

"Meredith—"

"I…I have to be somewhere else," Meredith insisted, jumping to her feet and reaching for her purse; this was crazy and impulsive and she was probably going to get burned, but…she had to do it. She had to stop running from him eventually. "I can't…I don't talk about that day. I've never really talked about, with anyone, and…the first time I talk about it shouldn't be with you. There's someone else who deserves to hear it first, and I've been too afraid before, but…I'm pretty sure this is the biggest push I'm going to get, so I…I really need to go…"

"Okay. Before you go, Meredith, take this," Dr. Hadden scribbled something on the back of one of her business cards and held it out to Meredith. "This is my private cell number," she explained. "I want you to call me if you need to, anytime. It's never too late; I'm available at any hour."

"Thank you," Meredith replied. She tucked the card into her purse as she fled the office. Outside, it had started to rain, and a light drizzle dampened Meredith's clothes as she ran across the parking lot to her Jeep. She didn't care; she just knew that she needed to find Derek before she lost her nerve.

Friday night traffic meant that the drive back to the hospital—which should have taken fifteen minutes—took nearly forty, and by the time she pulled into the parking lot, Derek's car was gone. She checked the cars outside Joe's too, but she wasn't surprised when he wasn't there, either. She was sure he'd be drinking tonight, after losing Lacey and fighting with Meredith, but that was the kind of drinking he'd rather do alone. She'd have to drive out to the trailer, and of course it _would_ be her luck that she missed the ferry to Bainbridge by five minutes. She nearly turned around to go home four times in the thirty minutes that she waited for the next one. What she was thinking about doing…it was huge. It was—terrifying. It could make or break everything that she and Derek had been working toward over the past few weeks.

Once she was on the ferry, turning back became a little harder, and her instinct to run was replaced by a low undercurrent of panic coursing through her body. She couldn't really run now—but that didn't mean that she wasn't dragging herself kicking and screaming to her fate. She'd wanted a push—and she'd gotten one. Her near drowning was one of the biggest unresolved issues marring her relationship with Derek, and they'd had it thrown in their faces today, forcing them to address it. She'd tried to run from it, tried to push him away to avoid it, tried to sabotage herself again—and none of it had worked. She was still here, on a ferryboat, drifting over the water that had almost been her grave, on her way to—what, she hadn't figured out yet.

Her nerves only worsened as she drove off the ferry. The rain had intensified while she'd been on the boat, and sheets of water pelted her windshield as she navigated the desolate roads toward Derek's. If he wasn't home when she got there—she was pretty sure she might kill him. If she got herself worked up for this—prepared the speech she was rehearsing in her mind—got out in this freaking _monsoon_ for him, and he wasn't there—he was a dead man. She could have called to find out where he was, she supposed, but…she really needed to do this in person. All of it. If she heard his voice, she might start babbling and say things she didn't mean to, and…these weren't things she wanted him to hear over the phone.

Her stomach churned as she turned off onto the dirt road that led to the clearing and his trailer. For the first time, she realized that she hadn't eaten all day. She was glad; there was no way her stomach would keep anything down right now. Was she really doing this? She was. She wasn't going to be this person any more. She wasn't going to shut him out anymore, wasn't going to let her fear make her miserable. But she _was_ afraid—so, so afraid that she was going to change in his eyes once he knew. That he'd never look at her the same way once he'd heard the truth. But good or bad, hurt or not, she had to do something—staying in limbo wasn't going to work anymore.

Her Jeep stopped abruptly about a hundred yards from his trailer, tossing her forward with a sudden jolt. She caught herself on the steering wheel and pressed her foot on the accelerator, only to hear her tires spinning in the mud. "Damn it," she muttered under her breath. She peered through the rain at Derek's trailer—so close, but it might as well be a mile in this weather. Only for him would she do something this _stupid_…

She left her purse in the car, grabbing only her keys as she pushed open the door. Taking a deep breath, Meredith jumped down, slamming the car door shut as she ran toward the trailer. Her feet sank into the mud with each step, and by the time she stumbled up the porch steps, her clothes were nearly soaked through. There was no turning back now. She raised her fist and pounded on the metal door three times before wrapping her arms around herself for warmth. It was definitely December, and the chill set through Meredith's wet clothes quickly, making her teeth chatter as she started shivering. She glanced into the yard behind her, noticing in surprise that the spot where the Chief's trailer had rested was now empty, but that Derek's car was parked not far beyond. She turned back to the door quickly as she heard Derek's footsteps, and wondered if it were possible for her heart to beat any faster.

Derek opened the door and froze, staring out at her in shock for a second that felt like an eternity before she heard him murmur her name. "Meredith."

"Hi," she replied awkwardly. Now that she was here, with him in front of her—everything she'd practiced on the ride over was gone; her head was empty of all thoughts except the realization that Derek was very much here, and very much not completely dressed. He'd obviously just gotten out of the shower, his hair still wet but already twisting into his trademark curls, and he'd only pulled on a pair of pajama pants before answering the door. Her eyes caught a few drops of water that slid down his bare chest, and followed them as they raced toward his stomach. She should...definitely not be thinking about a half-dressed Derek right now, but she only stopped staring when he spoke again.

"What—what are you doing here?" he asked.

She brought her eyes back to his and took a deep breath. She could do this. She was here, showing up. There was no turning back. "I'm um…I'm taking a leap of faith."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: A few housekeeping notes: 1) in case you missed it in the last chapter (I only updated the A/N a few days ago), most housekeeping notes will now be on my livejournal, so that I don't take up so much space on author's notes here. If you'd like to know when I plan on updating again or how the progress is coming on the next part...check there, or just come visit and say hi. The link is on my profile here. 2) Speaking of updates...I'm making no predictions at this point of when I might update again. I unexpectedly got a great new job three days ago, and will start this week. I'm also currently living with one contact lens, which makes life kind of like one of those 3D hidden puzzles I did as a kid, and staring at the computer screen very difficult. 3) This chapter is much lower on the drama than the last one. It was very frustrating for me to write, but I'm tired of fighting with it, so, here it is. I hope it's not a let down for you, but I'm (mostly) happy with it. 4) I'm going to make a concentrated effort to do much less nagging and begging for reviews. I appreciate them very much--I was blown away by the response to the last update--but I think from here out, I'll just say: If you can spare a few moments, please let me know your thoughts. Read, enjoy, review.**

Derek stared at her, dumbfounded. The mental dictionary of Meredith-to-English that he stored in his brain had apparently been stocked on the wrong shelf after the last time he'd used it. Leap of faith? That obviously meant something important to her, but he couldn't figure the direct translation. When she'd left him in Lacey Brennan's room earlier, he'd been convinced that whatever had been happening with them was through. After their fight and her refusal to acknowledge his apology—he'd thought she was done with him. But yet—she was here. She was standing in front of him, on his porch, eyes wide and hopeful, sopping wet, water dripping from her hair, and—

"God, Meredith, get out of the rain—" he said suddenly. He took her wrist in his hand—the same one he'd snatched so roughly earlier that day—and pulled her inside, out of the storm. The door slammed shut behind her, and he was left standing in his trailer, still staring at her, still disbelieving that she was _here_, still unsure _why_. He let his eyes canvas her body, cataloging the pool of water collecting at her feet, the mud caked onto her favorite black Converse sneakers, her jeans and sweater, clinging to her body with the weight of water, her hands shaking, her lips trembling and nearly blue with cold. She was drenched, and her skin felt like ice under his fingers.

_Jane Doe, hypothermic, drowning_

_It's not Jane Doe. It's Meredith Grey. It's Meredith. _

His heart skipped a beat. Meredith. Cold, and wet…it was inviting hypothermia to take over her body again. He couldn't let it—not again. He had to get her dry, get her warm—

Confusion creased her face as he released his hold on her and bolted past her. He threw open cabinet doors, yanked open drawers and rifled through them like a madman, pulling out appropriate items as he found them and bundling them under one arm. He returned to her and shoved the fruits of his search into her arms. "Go in the bathroom, dry off," he said. "Put on some dry clothes."

"Derek—" she started, looking down helplessly at the towel and his clothes.

"Go ahead," he insisted. "You're going to get sick if you stay in those."

_Derek, you need to…you're going to develop hypothermia, too. You need to go put on dry clothes._

_No. Addison, no. I'm not leaving her. She's in there—and they're—she—I can't. I can't leave her._

She must have recognized the desperation in his voice, realized how important this was to him, because she didn't protest again. She eyed him warily as she made her way to the tiny bathroom, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. Derek let out a slow, controlled breath. Meredith…was here. She was here, in his trailer, in his bathroom—almost in his clothes. She was here, and she…clearly had an agenda, which made him more than slightly nervous. But she was _here_.

He paced the floor of the trailer, crossing the short distance from the kitchen to his bed half a dozen times before he grabbed the t-shirt he'd laid by his pillow and tugged it on over his head. He noticed the towel on the bed and snatched it up, too, returning to the kitchen to mop of the pool of water where she'd been standing.

"Derek?"

He turned on his heel and smiled softly at the sight of her, dwarfed in his Columbia t-shirt and a pair of his favorite blue plaid pajama bottoms. She'd had to roll the waistband a few times to keep them from sliding off her hips, even with the drawstring tied tight. She'd rubbed the extra water from her hair with the towel, and the now just-slightly-damp waves framed her dry face, which had regained some of its color now that she was inside the warmth of the trailer. She looked…not like the Meredith he'd pulled out of the bay. She looked like his Meredith, his beautiful, perfectly _alive_ Meredith. "Hey," he said, at a loss for more eloquent words.

She motioned to the wet clothes in her arms. "I um…I left my sweater hanging up to dry. I hope that's okay, but I didn't know—what should I do with these?"

"Oh—um, here," he stepped toward her and took her clothes and the towel from her. "I can throw your jeans in the dryer, but your shoes—is it okay if I leave them by the door? They're a little—"

"Muddy," she nodded. "Sorry—I—my car got stuck in the mud, and they got dirty crossing the lawn."

"It's okay," he assured her, turning to put her clothes in the dryer and start the timer. He sighed as he faced her again, unsure of what to say, what to do. "Do you…do you want anything? A drink or something?" he offered, resorting to the role of a polite host in the absence of the slightest _clue_ what to do with Meredith standing in his kitchen at nearly nine o'clock. He was being a good host; his mother would be proud.

"I want…" she hesitated and bit into her bottom lip. He alternately found that particular habit of hers both endearing and unbearable. Right now, it fell under "unbearable. He wanted her to stop punishing herself—wanted to take her face in his hands and press a soothing kiss to the offended flesh. "I want to talk."

She couldn't have shocked him more if she'd tried, but it was a pleasant sort of surprised. "You want to talk," he echoed flatly. "About…"

"About us," she replied. "And about today. And about _that_ day."

He didn't have to ask what day _that _day was. _That_ day was something he would never, ever forget. _Today_ had been consumed by thoughts and memories of _that_ day. He'd relived the terror of those few hours all afternoon, all night…and _now_? Now, after months of wanting, needing, she was here offering…

"You do?" he asked, disbelieving. "You want to talk about…the accident?" He hated calling it that, not when he knew it was anything but an accident, but they pretended. Pretended like she hadn't tried to kill herself, that it had been a tragic twist of fate, not a deliberate plunge.

"I think we need to," she nodded. "I think…I think we _have_ to, Derek. I…I don't want today to happen again. I don't want to hurt each other again like we did today."

"I don't either," he sighed in relief, and before he could stop to think about them, words spilled from his lips. "Meredith—when that little girl came in, all I could think about was you. I was scared—I said things—"

"Stop it," she interrupted him. He obeyed, halting in mid-sentence, his mouth still slightly opened. Meredith shook her head, "You've already apologized, and…I know you were hurting when you said what you did. I'm…I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry that I wouldn't let you apologize, and I'm sorry for what I said. I was…I was incredibly mean to you. It wasn't fair…"

In the light of the trailer, he could see her eyes, red and puffy and tired. She looked like she'd been crying most of the day, and _that_ nearly broke his heart. He hated seeing her upset. "It's okay—" he assured her.

"No, it's not!" she cried. "It's not okay, Derek. I said horrible things to you. I wanted to hurt you, and I--I feel awful for it."

"It's okay," he repeated. "It's not—it's not worth being angry with you, Meredith. You _were_ mean, and the things you accused me of…they weren't true…but you were hurting too, Meredith. I get that." Six months earlier, he knew he would have held a grudge for what she'd said, would have fought with her over it. Six hours earlier, he _had_ fought with her, but the important thing was that he'd seen the mistake in it. He'd reacted instinctively when she attacked him in the lounge, but in the aftermath, he'd realized three things. One, she'd been deeply in pain; two, he wasn't blameless for her pain—she'd been defending herself against him, in case he yelled at her like he had downstairs; and three—it didn't change anything. It wasn't something he couldn't work through with her if she'd let him; it wasn't something that made him want her any less.

"You're not mad?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "I was, but I'm not now." He paused a beat before adding, "You fight sometimes, Mere, and then someone apologizes, remember? We've both apologized—a fight doesn't mean we're going to stop talking to each other."

Meredith smiled weakly and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She reached out and ran her fingertips along the edge of the countertop. She kept her eyes from meeting his. "So…"

"Do you want to sit down?" he suggested, sensing her hesitation and discomfort. "I know we're not used to sitting and _talking_ on the bed, but I think we can make it work, don't you?"

She laughed lightly and nodded, following him to the bed. She settled at the foot of the bed, pulling her bare feet of the cool floor and tucking them underneath her as she crossed them at her ankles. Derek let his legs hang over the bed as he sat next to her; it all felt stiff, awkward. Unnatural. This wasn't how he and Meredith talked—on the rare occasions that they _did_ talk. They were supposed to be under the blankets, her head on his chest or on the pillow next to his, their voices soft and murmuring…not…whatever this was. His hand flexed, and he had to clench it into a fist to stop the unconscious instinct to touch her. He wasn't allowed to touch her. That felt unnatural, too.

"I know you didn't give up on me that day," Meredith began. She twisted her hands together, examining her nails, fidgeting; he didn't think he'd ever met someone with more nervous habits. "I don't know why I said that. I know it's not true. I just…I knew it would make you mad, so I said it, and—I didn't give up either, Derek." She looked up at him and he saw tears already filling her eyes. She shook her head and started again, the words flowing rapidly, as though she had to get them all out in one breath or else risk never saying them at all.

"I know—I know you don't believe that, and I can't expect you to because I've never said anything until now, but you need to know—you have to know—that I didn't give up either. I wasn't trying to kill myself—I couldn't—I could never be that selfish, Derek. I didn't give up."

He wanted to believe her. Wanted to…but he knew better, didn't he? He'd replayed that day a thousand times in his mind and every time he came to the same conclusion. Meredith had given up. He didn't want it to be true—wanted to believe that she hadn't _tried_ to leave him—but it didn't add up. "You can swim," he said stubbornly. It was that one piece of evidence that damned her…she could swim. It hadn't been that far to the dock—she could have swum, if she'd wanted to…

"It was cold, Derek," she defended herself. "I _did_ swim, but it was cold. I was stunned when I hit the water. I fell…what, twenty feet or more? I went under…I don't know how far. I didn't know which way was up at first, and by the time I made it to the surface, I was already having trouble moving. It was cold, but I _swam_…" She paused to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand. "It was a _second_, Derek." The confession was so soft, barely more than a whisper, that he almost missed it. "For a second, I gave up," she sniffed. "I was tired…I was so tired of fighting, and for a _second_, I thought 'what's the point?', but I didn't mean to…I didn't _want_ to drown…"

He felt a lump growing in his throat and tried to swallow it. He remembered how cold that water had been; he was a strong swimmer, but five minutes in the water had taken a heavy toll on him, too. And Meredith was smaller than he was—she could swim, maybe even _had_ made an effort—but she was tiny. She would have succumbed to the cold much more quickly. But still… "What about that morning?" he insisted. "I pulled you out of the bath—"

"It was a bath, Derek!" Meredith replied, exasperated.

"You were under the water," he said. "I thought—after, I thought that if I had just made you call in that morning, stayed home with you, it wouldn't have happened." It was the first time he'd ever admitted any of his guilt over that day to her, and her expression softened immediately.

"Derek--" she murmured.

"I thought you meant to do it," he continued. "I thought if I'd kept you home, been able to watch you—I thought—I thought it was my fault, for not taking what happened that morning in the bath more seriously, for not--" He broke off in surprise as the warmth of Meredith's palm rested on the back of his hand.

"It was just a bath," she said gently. "I've done that since I was a little girl, Derek. I slip under the water and shut everything out and I can just…_think_. And maybe…maybe I stayed under a little longer than I should have that morning, but I wouldn't have let myself drown in the bathtub. I didn't _want_ to drown in the bathtub."

She hadn't wanted to drown. She hadn't been trying—she didn't want to drown. He _wanted_ to believe her, but he'd spent all these months thinking that she'd been so depressed that she'd tried to kill herself; another explanation was just…incomprehensible. "But you were mad at me—you were so angry that I pulled you out—"

"I was trying to think, Derek," Meredith replied. "I was trying to be alone and think and you were…you were trying to be there for me, but I just saw you interrupting my bath and then freaking out and pushing and I…I didn't want you in my head. I wasn't—I wasn't mad at you, I was just—my mother—"

_You're everywhere, all the time, saying things. _The synapses in his brain fired into action, bringing back the memory of that morning, and the day before. He'd _known_ it had something to do with Ellis. The way she'd acted the night before…she'd been so withdrawn, pulled away from him…the only explanation was that Ellis had done something. _Your mother was lucid, and..._

"She said things," he said aloud.

She nodded and took her hand away, occupying it instead with the wristband of her watch. "Yeah."

"So it was your mother? Your mother is what sent you into that water?" he asked. If it was Ellis…he'd always thought Ellis was _part_ of it, but he hadn't absolved himself of blame either. But if Ellis…

"She didn't _send_ me into it, Derek. A patient panicked and knocked me in." She sighed and fixed her eyes on her lap. "She just…things that she'd said…they didn't make me go in, but they didn't encourage me to get out."

"What did she _say_, Meredith?" He'd tried to get her to tell him that night, after they'd come home from Joe's early because she was so clearly not herself, and all he'd gotten out of her was cryptic Meredith-speak. _Nothing happened. Nothing out of the ordinary…just like me._ He'd seen Ellis's ways first hand that day, and the broken look in Meredith's eyes that night—it had Ellis's handwriting all over it.

"She…she was disappointed in me. She said I was ordinary," Meredith confessed. "I told her how happy you made me and she made me feel like I was stupid for being happy with you…like I should be more focused on my career, like her or like Cristina…"

There were probably a hundred things Derek needed to address in those three sentences, but his heart leapt at one phrase and clung to it. "I made you happy?" he asked. She'd told Ellis that he made her happy? That she'd been happy with him…

"Yeah," Meredith looked at him like the answer had been obvious, like she didn't understand why he'd asked, but continued without comment. "When I was trying to swim, I just…for a second, I thought that it might be easier if I didn't…I thought…I was just so tired, Derek. I was so tired of trying so hard and failing everything…"

"You are not a failure, Meredith," he said firmly. "You never were." If she weren't already gone, he could kill Ellis Grey for doing this to her own daughter. He couldn't understand it, couldn't understand how anyone could think that Meredith wasn't enough, could make her feel like she wasn't good enough. But then…that was exactly what he'd done to her with Addison, and then Rose.

"I didn't want to fail you," she whispered.

"You didn't," he assured her.

"I did!" she cried, a sob choking her voice as tears started to fall. "I died, Derek. I died, and I didn't want to break you, I didn't want to change who you were, so I came back, but it wasn't enough. We fell apart because I died…I failed you…"

He couldn't stand watching her break down over something that was his fault. Ignoring her prohibitions against touching, he reached across the gap between them and took her face in his hands, brushing tears away with his thumbs. "You didn't fail me," he said again. "I failed _you_. I didn't do a good enough job—I didn't make you happy enough. I loved you but it wasn't enough…I didn't show you often enough…to make you want to live-- "

"That's not true," she replied. "You _saved_ me, Derek. You…you're what made me come back."

He shook his head. "I pulled you out, Mere, but it wasn't just me, it was Bailey and—"

"No, you're not—" she pushed his hands away from her face in frustration. "You don't understand." Her shoulders sank with a deep sigh, and she looked at him anxiously. "I—I'm so afraid to tell you this, Derek…"

"Tell me what?" he asked, wrinkling his forehead in confusion and concern.

"The rest. The rest of what happened that day. I…I'm so afraid that you'll think I'm crazy," she faltered, "that you'll never look at me the same way again…"

Something in her eyes called up another memory, standing at a desk in the hospital weeks after the drowning, when the stress of her accident had already become compounded by the developments in the race for chief, and he'd started avoiding her. _When I drowned it was different for you than it was for me. Something happened to me and I really don't know how to explain it without sounding like..._

This was something she'd held in for months, then. Something she hadn't trusted him enough to tell him at the time, but now she was here, spilling her guts to him about that day, and offering secret insight he'd almost forgotten he didn't know.

Nothing about that day made sense anymore—Meredith hadn't gone in on purpose. She'd tried to swim, she'd fought—Ellis hadn't made her kill herself—and Meredith said that it wasn't his fault either. Everything he'd believed about that day had been torn up from the foundation, months' worth of conviction overturned in the span of fifteen minutes, and he couldn't imagine what she could possibly tell him that could rattle him any more—but she was clearly terrified to tell him.

"Meredith—you're not crazy. And _nothing_ can change how I feel about you," he promised, giving her a reassuring smile. "You can tell me anything."

Her shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh; her hands started shaking with nerves. "I saw things. People. When I was dead," she paused to gauge his reaction, and he tried to keep his expression neutral, interested, empty of any of the confusion and disbelief that had been his first responses. "It was…some weird limbo thing—you know, like you hear about with white lights and tunnels and whatever—only it was in the hospital, which, you know, is pretty pathetic, if I can't even get out of the hospital when I'm dead," she laughed nervously. "Anyway, there were people there, patients, mostly…"

He listened intently as she described a scene that reminded him strongly of segments he'd seen years ago on that awful show Robert Stack had narrated—the one Kathleen had always watched, no matter how much he and the other girls had teased her. Meredith wove a story about hospital halls populated by dead patients—some he remembered (Bonnie, and that heart patient Izzie Stevens had gotten involved with), others he didn't—who'd explained the rules of being dead to her. She tearfully recounted how she'd first resigned herself to her fate (she'd figured a place with their dead dog couldn't be all that bad), and then how she'd realized that she wasn't ready to be dead, not at the cost to herself and the people she loved.

"The idea of being what changed you—of never having you again…losing everything with you and hoping for a split second _hint_ of you…it wasn't enough, Derek." She was clearly shaken, but her eyes were shining as she smiled at him. "I wanted _you_. I wanted my life back, and I wanted my life with you, and that—that's what I came back for. That's what I fought for—"

"Meredith—" he interrupted her, then realized he didn't have words to follow her name. What she'd said…it was unbelievable. Surreal. He didn't know what to think, what to say to her…

The hopeful smile fell from her face. "You think I'm crazy."

"No…I just…it's hard to believe," he sighed, searching his brain for anything, _anything_ to help make sense of what he'd just heard. There was something…something he'd read fifteen years ago in one of the journals Kathy had brought him. "I've read reports…studies of patients who've claimed experiences like that," he said slowly. "There were studies done, when I was in medical school—it's something to do with DMT or serotonin, it triggers hallucinatory states—"

"I wasn't hallucinating, Derek," she said hotly. "It was real. It happened. It freaks me out, too, and that's why I've never told anyone, but I _know_ it happened."

"I just—" he started desperately.

"Do you remember when I woke up, Derek?" she asked. "Not when I woke up from being dead, because you weren't there then, but the first time we saw each other, after?"

"Of course I do," he replied immediately.

"Do you remember, you started to tell me my mother had died, and I already knew? Didn't you wonder how I knew? I saw her, Derek. She was there, in…whatever it was. I saw her, and I talked to her…she told me I wasn't ordinary. I knew she was dead when I woke up. Tell me how serotonin could work that way," she demanded.

He let out a long, slow breath and leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. "I don't know," he admitted. He lifted his head and brought his hands to her hair, combing the waves back off her face and searching for a whiff of the lavender scent that was forever linked in his brain with her. He couldn't find it; the rain must have washed it away. "I need a drink," he muttered. "Do you want one?"

She nodded. "If you have something other than scotch."

He smiled softly; he'd never been able to get her to appreciate scotch. She only liked it when she tasted it on him, she'd always said. Usually he kept a bottle of her favorite tequila for her, but he hadn't since they'd been broken up. "I have a bottle of wine. I'll open it if you want," he offered.

"That sounds…great," she said gratefully. "Just…not a lot though," she requested as he stood up and stepped a few feet away into the kitchen. "I haven't eaten…"

"Do you want something?" he turned back to her, concerned. He wasn't worried about the wine--Meredith's alcohol tolerance was higher than some men he knew—but she shouldn't go hungry. "I've had dinner, but I'm sure I can find something if you—"

"No, I'm okay," she assured him. "Wine is good. I think I need a drink, too."

He laughed and reached into the cabinet, quickly locating the bottle resting on its side. As he took down two glasses, he tried to process through what Meredith had told him. She didn't think he believed her, he knew. He...he did believe her, he decided. It was a bizarre story, but the fact that she _hadn't_ told him before now convinced him of her own belief in its veracity. And she had a point—the question of how she'd known about Ellis's death had always bothered him. He'd chalked it up to intuition, but that had never seemed to fit. Near-death experiences didn't make much sense either, but Meredith was so adamant…he didn't have any choice _but_ to believe her. Meredith was a romantic, but she _had_ been raised by Ellis Grey, and some of that skepticism had transferred to Meredith. She was no more inclined to believe in paranormal activities than he was—this was sort of thing she'd have scoffed at—unless it had happened to her.

He wished he'd known she was coming over; he would have chilled the wine first, but a quick taste test convinced him that it would do. He tilted the bottle and filled both glasses halfway with the dark liquid before replacing the cork and storing the bottle in the refrigerator. He returned to the bed with one glass in each hand, and quirked an eyebrow when he saw that Meredith had moved to the head of the bed, and was now quite comfortably reclined against his pillows. He noticed her hand, rubbing gingerly on the small of her back, and didn't tease her for making herself at home. "Are you okay?" he asked as he handed her a glass and settled next to her, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"Yeah, my back was just hurting" she replied. She took a small sip and watched him over the rim of her glass. "I'm not crazy," she said softly.

"I know. It's just hard to believe, Mere," Derek sighed. "It's not something I've experienced and it's not something I can explain medically, scientifically. I believe you, but…I don't know if I wanted to know how close I really was to losing you."

"I feel like…I feel like I wasted our second chance," Meredith confessed as she stared into her wine. "When I was dead, and then even in those first few weeks after, everything was so clear. I knew how stupid it was to let all my issues come between us, and I knew we could be happy...I _wanted_ us to be happy. I think that's part of why I wouldn't talk about it. I wanted to put all of that bad stuff behind us and just…move on." She looked up at him sadly. "But it didn't work out that way—I thought I could just ignore what happen, but we should have talked about it. We _needed_ to talk."

"We're talking now," he pointed out.

She smiled softly. "We are."

The talking gave way to silence for several minutes, filled with slow sips of wine and stolen glances at each other, and—at least on Derek's part—reflection. The events of that day were at the same time both clearer and more muddled than ever. He'd been so, so sure that Meredith had gone in on purpose. Convinced that the combination of his inadequacy in her eyes and Ellis's caustic words had literally driven Meredith over the edge. He'd spent weeks staying up at night, just watching her sleep and trying to figure out how to _keep_ her breathing. And now…now she was here, on his bed, just inches away from him…telling him that it really had been what everyone had tried to make him see: an accident. She hadn't gone into the water on purpose. She _hadn't_ tried to drown herself—in the bathtub or in the bay. Her mother _had_ played a part, but only in that her words had given Meredith that second of painful doubt—the second that cost her the last chance to fight—because she _had_ fought. He'd known she could swim—and she had. And Derek—he'd had a different role than he'd believed, too. If he could wrap his mind around the near-death experience she claimed—then she'd come back for Derek. She'd come back to him…_wanted_ to come back to him. And all the months that followed—when he'd grown frustrated with her, believed that she was pushing him away, didn't want him—all that time, she'd wanted him after all.

He set his wine glass aside and leaned back against the pillows, tucking his hands behind his head. He'd just shut his eyes when he heard Meredith's soft voice. "Tell me your side."

He opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow quizzically. "My side? Of what happened that day?" She nodded in response. "You really want to know?"

"No," she replied. "I never wanted to know. But when we fought today…you said that I have no idea what you went through…and I need to know, even if I don't want to."

He sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. He'd relived that day so many times, even thought about what he might say if she ever wanted to talk about it, but his emotions were _shot_ tonight. He wasn't sure he could get through this. "As far as I can tell, you were underwater maybe five, ten minutes," he began slowly. "It was about twenty minutes after I last saw you that the paramedics brought the patient with your jacket by me. I saw that girl—the one you'd had with you—and she was alone. I asked her to take me to you, and it took her a few minutes to find her way back to the dock, and when she pointed out at the water—I swear my heart stopped, Meredith."

He had to stop as tears pricked his eyes. He had never felt a more pure terror than in that moment, when he'd realized that his worst fears had come true. He'd failed to protect her, ignored his gut instincts, and she'd done it. She'd left him. Maybe forever. He took a deep breath and cleared his head. She hadn't left him. Not forever. She was here, right next to him…she wasn't dead.

"It's a miracle that I found you as quickly as I did. If I hadn't—I think we'd both have died in that water, because all I could think about was getting you out. I wasn't leaving you there. It took two dives for me to find you, but I had to come up for air before I could pull you up. I got you onto the dock and pulled myself out, and then I picked you up and carried you up the steps…you were so blue…you felt like ice…"

His voice cracked, and he coughed, trying to cover it, even as a few rebellious tears slid from the corners of his eyes. The mattress shifted as Meredith leaned over him and placed her glass next to his beside the bed. She gingerly laid one hand on his stomach as she repositioned herself against his side. She laid her head on his shoulder, and the warmth of her body seeped into his, giving silent reassurance that the Meredith he was remembering was not the Meredith with him now. He turned instinctively and pressed his lips to the top of her head, curling an arm around her shoulders, holding her as though her life—and his—depended on it.

"There was a rescue worker there—he saw you in my arms and ran to get a stretcher while I started CPR right there. They put you in an ambulance and I continued CPR. I wouldn't let them touch you until one of them said I'd be able to do stronger compressions if I wasn't breathing for both of us. Bailey got you into a trauma bay, and I ran it until they threw me out. I don't think I've ever felt so useless…so helpless…"

"You weren't--" she tried to comfort him, but she didn't finish her thought.

He ignored her, instead remembering the feeling of sitting outside that trauma bay on the cold floor, all alone, afraid that he was about to lose the most important person in his life. It was something he'd experienced thirty years before, and had never wanted to go through again. "When you died, Meredith…" he sighed. "When you died, I was…I was seven years old again, waiting for a door to open and some doctor to tell me that my world was gone."

"Your dad?" Meredith looked up and met his eyes.

"Yeah," he brought his free hand to her face and slid it into her hair, letting his fingers comb through the loose waves. "I love my mom, but my dad—he was—he was everything to me, Meredith. The day he died—it was a completely ordinary day, until I was called to the principal's office out of lunch. My Uncle Christopher was there, and when all of my sisters got there, he told us that there had been an accident and both of our parents were in surgery. We waited for…ages…before a surgeon came out and sat down across from us and told us that our dad had died on the operating table."

"What happened?" she asked gently. He'd never told her about his dad before; it wasn't something he talked about with anyone, and even now, he had to force himself to tell her the bare details. There was more to the story, so much more, but he couldn't think about it. Couldn't tell her, even though she'd just told him _everything_ about the day she died.

"Aortic dissection," he replied. As a child, they'd just told him that his dad's heart had been hurt; it was only later, in his late teens, that he'd learned the actual cause of death when he'd overheard his mother talking to another widow about their husbands' deaths. "The car that hit them hit on my dad's side. It was random and completely unpredictable, and it wasn't something that could have been medically prevented. It just happened. I woke up one morning and everything was normal, and in a second…everything changed.

"With you—it was almost the same," he continued. "I had seen you minutes before, and you were alive and warm and _you_…it was like I blinked, and the next second I was pulling you out of the water and you were dead. It was random and all the medicine in the world couldn't have prevented you from going in the water, but I _knew_. I _knew_ you hadn't been yourself that morning, that something was wrong, and I didn't stop it. _I _could have prevented it, but I failed. I tried to breathe for you, tried to bring you back, but then I was stuck in that hallway, waiting for them to come out and tell me that you were gone, really gone. That the person who was my entire world was _gone_, and it was _my_ fault…"

Meredith shook her head; she was nearly in tears, too. "It wasn't—"

He cut her off before she could say it. "It was to me," he insisted. "I thought—I thought I hadn't done enough for you. I thought that you didn't want me…want us…enough to live. No matter what I did…it wasn't enough to stop you from going in that water again. I couldn't save you and I couldn't save my dad…"

"They were accidents, Derek," Meredith said firmly, "and you were seven years old when you lost your dad. There was nothing you could have done. You didn't send me into the water, Derek…and you didn't lose me."

"I did. For three hours—the worst three hours of my life—you were gone, and I grieved for you. You came back and you lived, but that doesn't mean that I didn't lose you—or that part of me didn't die with you," he regretted how harsh the words had sounded when he saw the expression her face. He hadn't meant to hurt her feelings, but he needed her to understand that the pain of losing her didn't end when she woke up. "No one teaches you how to handle the person you love dying," he said. "I lost you, and you lost your mother, too…we were grieving Meredith, but we didn't know how…I don't think we knew how to share that grief." In this case, he'd grieved by gluing himself to her, staying by her side every possible minute, constantly reassuring himself that she was there, alive, and not leaving.

Meredith nestled her head against him again. As though she'd read his mind, she murmured, "You hovered."

"I hovered," he agreed, amazed at how well she could sense his thoughts. "I needed to make sure it didn't happen again. I was convinced that I'd missed something…missed my chance to stop it from happening. I didn't know if I would be enough to stop you from trying again, but I'd be damned if I missed the signs again."

"Where were you? When I woke up?" It was an abrupt change in topic, but he could tell it was something she'd wanted to ask. He'd wanted to tell her, too; he'd always hated that he hadn't been the one she woke up to. If he hadn't been so grateful to have Meredith back, he thought he might _still_ be holding that grudge against Miranda Bailey.

"Addison and Mark got me to leave the hall, go put on dry clothes. I went to your mother's room. I was angry with her—I didn't know what, exactly, but I knew that she'd been the reason you changed overnight. She went into cardiac arrest—I ran her code." He paused for a breath. "I didn't want…I didn't want to have to tell you she was dead when you woke up. I tried to save her, but—I couldn't."

"My mother was dead hours before I saw you," Meredith said. He sighed reluctantly into her hair; she wasn't going to let him get away with anything less than the truth. He didn't want to relive that day any more…but she'd opened up so much tonight, how could he refuse her this? How could he shut her out when she was finally talking, finally trusting…finally giving him what he'd been asking for…

"I went to my office," he confessed. "Locked myself in, and cried like a baby."

_Mom, Derek's in Dad's closet! He won't come out!_

_What? Oh, the poor—Kathleen, take Nancy to her room and help her put on a different dress. She's spilled something all over this one—_

_What dress do you want me to put on her?_

_I don't care, Kathleen—that old one of Maggie's, as long as it's clean and black. Just go so I can take care of your brother. Derek, honey?_

_Go away._

_Can't I come in?_

_No._

_Why are you hiding in here?_

_It smells like Daddy._

Derek had to fight to keep the tears back at the sudden reminder of his father's wake. He turned his head and pressed his lips firmly to Meredith's forehead. She flinched at the gesture, but she didn't pull away from him. "Bailey didn't page me when you woke up. They sent you for an MRI, to check for brain damage, first. Addison came to get me, after you were back in your room. I ran--I had to see you, before I'd believe it was true—and you were asleep." He smiled, consumed by a second wave of the emotions that had flooded his body at that image of her—the first time he'd seen her since he'd been forced away from her cold, dead body. "I could see you breathing, see your heart beating on the monitor. You looked so small under all those blankets, but you had your color back. You were warm and safe and alive…and that was all that mattered right then. I stood in your doorway, and I watched you sleep."

"You have a weird thing about watching me sleep," Meredith observed, her voice purring with amusement. She was trying to lighten his mood. It worked.

"You're cute when you sleep," he grinned. "It gave me time to think about what I'd say to you. Calm down. Catch my breath. I had this whole thing I wanted to say to you, and then…when you opened your eyes…I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. It was…not unlike you showing up on my porch tonight. I thought I'd lost you, and then…there you were, right there in front of me. There wasn't a lot of higher brain function or thought beyond…immeasurable relief and happiness that you weren't gone."

"You thought you'd lost me today?" she asked, surprised.

"Mm," he nodded. "When that little girl—"

"Lacey," she corrected him.

"Lacey," he echoed. "When she came in…it was like losing you all over again. Reliving every second of that day. I couldn't have you in there with me—I couldn't try to save her if you were there. I panicked, and I yelled—and then after we got her on life support, I went to look for you. I checked everywhere—my office, the supply closets, the on-call room we used to have our dates in—and I found you in the lounge, and seeing you there, and alive…it was like a huge weight, gone. And then you yelled at me…"

"I'm sorry, for that," she apologized.

"I told you, it's okay. You were upset, and you had the right to be upset with me," he paused, remembering a fight he'd had with Addison. "Besides—you wouldn't have bothered yelling if you didn't care about me…us. Anyway—you yelled and disappeared, and then in Lacey's room you couldn't wait to get away from me. I thought I'd messed things up. I thought…you might not be willing to forgive me for snapping at you like I did—even if it was under extreme stress—that whatever…whatever we'd been doing was over and I'd lost you all over again…"

"You didn't," she promised. "I don't…I don't know what we're doing, either…but it's not over."

His heart skipped a beat and he had to stop himself from kissing her. "I'm glad," he replied. "I don't want to lose you."

She fell quiet, and Derek didn't mind. His head was unusually full, and the drink hadn't helped as much as he'd hoped. He should have gone for the scotch. Everything felt so, so surreal. As if it were something he'd dreamed, not something that had actually happened to him. Meredith had shown up after their fight. She'd apologized. She'd wanted to talk—and they'd definitely talked. Months of agonizing over her drowning, countless hours wondering what he'd done wrong, how he could prevent it again—and it wasn't the suicide attempt he'd thought. She'd given up for a moment, but at the end of the day—it was fundamentally an _accident_. And she'd come back for him…loved him…wanted him…

"I didn't—I don't want to lose you either," she murmured against his side. "I didn't mean to hurt you—when I drowned, I mean. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I did that to you."

"You didn't do it on purpose." It wasn't a question. It was something he was beginning to accept as fact. She hadn't drowned on purpose. He just…he needed to hear it again.

"No."

"You weren't trying to kill yourself," he stated.

"No."

"I didn't know that then," he said thoughtfully. "I do now. And it wasn't my fault?"

"No, it wasn't," Meredith replied. "It was no one's fault."

That wasn't true, Derek knew, not completely. Going in the water was an accident—giving up, a moment of weakness that he could forgive her for, now that he knew. But she'd never have had that moment—never would had given credence to her mother's accusations—if he hadn't given her reason to doubt herself. Maybe things had been better with them just before, but he'd hurt her, made her feel like she wasn't good enough. Made her feel ordinary. That was on him as much as it was Ellis. Meredith was generous, and forgiving—more forgiving than he deserved—but he wouldn't forget what he'd done to her. He'd spend the rest of his life making sure she knew that she was much more than good enough.

"I loved you enough?" he asked.

"Mm," she confirmed, "and I loved you enough to come back for us. I wasn't ready to give you up."

"You didn't give up." Not when it counted, she hadn't. In the water, yes. But if she'd really been in that…in-between place…really had the choice to live or die…she hadn't quit on him then.

"Neither did you." Her chest rose and fell against his side with a sigh; if Derek wasn't fooling himself, he'd say that it was a very contented sigh. "I wish I'd told you. Before now," Meredith murmured. "I wish we'd talked, when it happened."

"Me too."

She shifted against him, clutching the fabric of his shirt in her fingers. A moment later, he heard her sniffle and felt a small spot of wetness seep through his shirt. "I died, Derek."

He brought his other arm across his body and wrapped it around her waist, pressing his palm against the small of her back to draw her close. "I know," he was afraid to speak above a whisper, in case a sob choked his voice again.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered.

"Me too." That was all she needed to fall apart, and she did. She started softly, but quickly dissolved into loud, gut-wrenching sobs against his chest. If he didn't know better, he'd think that she'd been storing all those tears since she drowned. He knew how many tears she must have shed already today, and couldn't imagine where she'd found the reserve stores to cry this hard again. "Shh," he soothed, rubbing one hand up and down her back slowly. "It's okay. I've got you. I'm here."

His efforts proved futile, but he continued whispering to her and holding her even as her sobs drew fresh tears from his own eyes. He felt her arms slip around him, one gripping his shoulder as the other slid around his neck and her fingers tangled in his hair. For several minutes, they both cried, finally grieving together, before Derek's hands had calmed her down and her sobs turned into hiccups, punctuated by the occasional sniffle. Derek buried his nose in her hair and continued trailing his fingertips along her side, tracing a path from her hips up her ribcage and back down. She didn't usually let him touch her, and if she wasn't protesting, he intended to take full advantage of the opportunity to have her in his arms.

Derek sensed her falling asleep long before her fingers went limp in his hair and he heard the tell-tale deep breath that always betrayed the moment she slipped off into sleep. He knew she wouldn't be happy if he let her sleep—she hadn't allowed herself to fall asleep with him in months—but he couldn't bring himself to wake her. She was exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally. The day had drained them both; the fact that she _had_ fallen asleep in his arms testified to that. But more than thinking of her and her need to rest—he wasn't ready to give her up. He wanted to hold her, just a little longer.

Something between them had changed tonight. She had come to him, trusted him, and they'd talked. They'd talked more openly than they had in a very long time, and she—_she'd_ been the one to ask for it. _She'd_ been the one to lay her head on him. She'd cried; he could probably count on one hand the number of times she'd let him see her cry, and he could only think of once or twice that she'd cried this hard. She'd taken huge steps tonight, and though he wasn't jumping to declare them fixed and reunited, he knew they were closer. There was so much more to say—so much more to heal for both of them. They'd only touched the tip of the iceberg. They hadn't even gotten to the issues that came _after_ her drowning—the Chief thing that he'd never told her about, the way she'd pulled away from him after her stepmother had died, the breakup (both of them, he supposed), Rose. But tonight…tonight was something. The Meredith he'd broken up with five weeks earlier was not the Meredith who'd shown up at his door tonight. It wasn't everything…but it was a damn good start.

The quiet of the trailer was broken by the sudden ring of Derek's cell phone. He kept one arm around Meredith as he fumbled for the phone, rejecting the call in an effort to silence it. Maggie. Of course. Maggie was always the sister who called at the most inopportune time.

Meredith stirred, brought out of her sleep by the phone call. She mumbled something unintelligible into Derek's chest before realizing where she was. She gasped and pushed against Derek's chest, blinking rapidly in confusion.

"Shh, lay back down," he murmured, bringing his hand back to her face and stroking her hair softly.

"No—no," she stammered, still half-asleep. "I need to go."

His heart sank. Not now. Not again. Not tonight. "No, you don't. You don't have to go."

"I do—" she protested.

"Meredith," he argued. "It's storming outside—I don't want you driving in that."

"I'll be fine," she insisted.

He noticed the wine glasses beside the bed. "You've been drinking."

She rolled her eyes. "It was one glass of wine. I'm fine—"

"Then stay for me," he said desperately. She didn't have an immediate comeback for that, but it did wake her up. He shook his head as she stared at him with wide eyes. "I can't…Meredith, after everything that happened today…I don't think either of us needs to be alone tonight. I can't—I need you here."

"Derek—" she said weakly.

"Please. Meredith—I'll sleep on the other side of the bed, or on the floor if you want—I won't touch you," he promised. "I just—I need to know where you are, that you're safe, and—" he sighed in anticipation of defeat. "If you really want to go, then I'll drive you home. But please, please do this for me…please don't leave me tonight."

She studied his face for five painfully long seconds before she dropped her head into the crook of his neck with a groan. "I'm too tired to fight with you anymore."

"You're staying?" He couldn't believe she'd given in, that he'd actually talked her into it. He wasn't convinced that the glass of wine on an empty stomach didn't have something to do with it, but he wasn't complaining.

"Apparently," she muttered.

"Do you want me to move?" he asked. He was serious about the floor thing. He'd probably brave the cold to sleep outside in the hammock if she asked him to—or at least in the car.

She hummed something that might have been a yes or a no, then clarified, "No, I'm okay."

He smiled softly, and resumed his soothing caress of her side as she squirmed slightly, trying to find her comfortable position again. When she was still, he let his other hand run over her hair again, reveling in the feel of the silky strands under his touch. He'd woken up this morning and decided to ask her for coffee; he'd never imagined that she'd wind up asleep in his bed. "I guess you wound up spending your Friday night with your charming neurosurgeon after all," he teased.

"I guess so," she chuckled.

Derek reached for the light switch just beyond the bed and flicked it, sending the trailer into darkness. He used his foot to maneuver the quilt at the foot of the bed into his reach, and then managed to use one hand to drape the blanket over himself and Meredith.

"Get still," Meredith growled as he slowly inched his way into a supine position. "Or I'm going to change my mind about making you sleep on the floor."

"Sorry," he whispered. He shifted his weight one last time and gathered her in his arms again. He felt her eyelashes flutter against his skin as her eyes closed, but the pattern of her breaths told him she wasn't yet asleep. "Mere…before…I really did make you happy?"

"Do," she murmured. "You do make me happy, Derek."

He smiled into the darkness and pressed another stolen kiss against her forehead. He made her happy. Not just before the drowning, and not just before Addison. She'd used the present tense. He was still _actively_ making her happy.

He left her alone after that, content to have her happy and safe and warm and dry, and most importantly—with him. He knew she was still awake, but they'd said everything that needed to be said tonight. The rest…could wait until tomorrow, or the day after, or just…later. Tomorrow—he'd wake up with her tomorrow. It had been too long since this woman had shared his bed, too long since he'd had the chance to wake up before her and just watch her sleep…but tomorrow. Tomorrow he would.

He'd almost drifted off to sleep when he heard her voice. "Derek? Are you still awake?"

"Mm," he replied. "Yeah."

"Is this okay? I mean, me lying like this. Are you comfortable, or do I need to move?"

Her head was on his shoulder, and his arm was beginning to lose sensation from the restricted blood flow. He could only hold his neck in one position without making her move her head, but he should be fine there, too. He adjusted his arm a little and grimaced as needles shot through his tissues, signaling the return of normal circulation. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but Meredith—she had one arm around his neck, her fingers playing lazily with his hair, and _she_ was comfortable—actually able to rest next to him, uninhibited, unreserved—and he couldn't take that from her. He didn't really _need_ to feel that arm, did he?

"No, no, you're fine," he assured her. "You're…perfect, actually. This is perfect." He felt a rush of air across his neck as she moved closer to him and sighed happily. In a matter of minutes, her breathing became deeper, slower, and he knew that she'd given in to her fatigue. As the rain beat a steady staccato on the roof, Derek shut his eyes, too, and for what seemed like the first night in weeks, they both slept.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: I battled the worst writer's block ever with this chapter, but here it is, finally. If you have time, please consider leaving a quick note with your thoughts. I would greatly appreciate it. No predictions for the next update, other than "hopefully by next weekend." Feel free to check progress and interact over at the LiveJournal too.**

Meredith's first thought upon waking was to berate herself for forgetting to pull the shades to her bedroom windows. Her second thought, as she mumbled crossly and turned her face away from the offending light, was that her pillow felt unusually firm and unforgiving. Her third thought caused her to open her eyes in panic as she realized that her pillow was not a pillow at all, but Derek, sound asleep beneath her, his arm curled around her body, fingers splayed across her hip, her leg thrown over his. She remembered now. She remembered all of it.

Her immediate impulse was to scramble out of Derek's arms, get out of his bed as quickly as possible. As soon as the thought entered her head, she pushed it aside. Derek hadn't done anything to her last night. She lifted her head just enough to see the wine glasses beside the bed. She couldn't blame the wine; she hadn't been drunk. She'd stayed with him voluntarily, in full control of her faculties. She'd let him touch her, and _she'd_ been the one to lie down next to him in the first place. Ever since the hospital's memorial fundraiser, when she'd let her guard down with him for the first time since the breakup, she'd been struck at random moments with a sheer _ache_ to be near him, to touch him. It wasn't a lust thing—it was the closeness, the comfort and safety she felt with him. She'd been afraid to let her guard down again, but last night, she hadn't fought herself over it. If she'd ever needed Derek close, last night was it.

They'd said things last night. Big things. She'd had no idea how much Derek had blamed himself for her drowning; she hated that she'd let him suffer with that guilt for all these months just because she wouldn't talk. But now she knew…and he knew…they both knew what had happened that day, and that? That was a huge step in the right direction for them. Dr. Hadden would be proud of her, Meredith thought. Despite her fears, she'd taken the chance. She'd made the leap of faith, and it had worked out better than Meredith had ever dared to let herself dream.

The windows to the trailer were still speckled with drops of water from the rain shower; the storm must have lasted all night. She hadn't noticed—by the time she'd given in and fallen asleep on Derek, she'd been so exhausted that she doubted a freak tornado passing through Seattle would have woken her. Derek seemed to be sleeping just as soundly. Meredith released the tension that had built with her flight instinct in one slow exhale. She nestled her head against Derek again, relaxing in his embrace, and smiled softly as she registered the rise and fall of his chest under her cheek.

_You're perfect. This is perfect._

Had Derek really said that, or had she imagined it, dreamt it as she drifted off to sleep? She didn't know—but it did feel perfect. Lying here with Derek—it felt good. Right. Safe. It had been months since she'd woken up next to him, but it felt so familiar, natural. Meredith had almost forgotten how much she missed it. She missed the quiet comfort of lounging in bed with Derek, talking and teasing each other, or else just _being_ together. Sometimes, like now, there was a simple, silent joy in each other's company. Meredith didn't want to get up; she would be perfectly happy to stay in bed with him for a few more hours. As long as he slept, it was easy to pretend that the contentment she felt curled up with Derek could last.

She wanted nothing more than to stay in bed with him and pretend, and she fought for several minutes before she had no choice but to give in to her bladder. Meredith evaluated her position and tried to figure out the best way to extract herself from Derek's arms. She didn't want to wake him; he'd had a long night, too, and he deserved his rest. She bit her lip in concentration as she slid her hand from his chest and carefully pried his fingers from her hip. Derek's arm fell to the bed beside her and he mumbled something in his sleep. Meredith held her breath and watched anxiously, afraid to move before she was convinced he wouldn't wake up. She sat up slowly and gingerly moved to the edge of the bed. A shiver went through her body as her bare feet hit the cool wood floor and she tiptoed quickly to the bathroom.

After she'd washed her hands and left the bathroom, Meredith opened the door and cast a quick glance at the bed. She was amazed that the sound of running water—or even just the noise she made walking around—hadn't woken him. She rolled her eyes. Mr. "I'm-a-light-sleeper" hadn't even budged; he was out like a light. For a moment, Meredith considered lying back down with him, but ultimately decided against it. Trying to reposition herself next to him would probably be what finally woke him, and then the moment would be ruined. As if to confirm that she'd made the right choice, Derek turned suddenly, flopping onto his side and grabbing a pillow in place of Meredith. Meredith crept to the side of the bed, cringing at each noise and praying it wouldn't bother him, and slid her feet into his slippers. She'd teased him for them—such a Manhattan thing, for him to have slippers when he lived in a trailer in the middle of the woods—but the first time she'd experienced a cold night at the trailer, she'd left him alone about them. She found his robe on the couch by the door and stole that, too, on her way outside.

Meredith was greeted by a blast of cool air, the usually chill December temperatures even lower after the rain storm last night. The grass was wet, and Meredith hugged Derek's robe a little tighter around herself as she made her way to the water. Derek's morning fishing trips had left a path to his favorite spot worn into the grass, but Meredith would have known the way even without the trampled blades to lead her. She wasn't leaving the clearing, but the silver trailer disappeared partially behind a few tall bushes as Meredith rounded a slight bend and passed the crude wooden marker, crowned with a weather-worn dog collar, that identified Doc's grave. Derek had shown her the floating dock the first time she'd spent the night at the trailer (he'd tried to convince her that he'd built it himself, but she'd never quite believed him, what with his well-documented Manhattan origin), and ever since, it had been one of Meredith's favorite places on his land.

The dock swayed, dipping into the water under her weight as she stepped onto it. The boards were wet from the rain, so she crossed her legs underneath her and sat on her feet in an effort to stay as dry as possible. The water lapped at the edge of the dock, waves rippling away from the wood with each shifting motion. The water was dark, opaque and even before she skimmed her fingertips along the surface, Meredith knew it would be freezing. She shuddered—whether from the chill itself or the memories it resurrected, she wasn't sure—and covered her hands with the sleeves of Derek's robe. The lake on Derek's land was so quiet, so serene, so perfectly unassuming; it was easy to forget the dangers of it. It was like that bathtub that Lacey Brennan had drowned in the day before—no one would ever suspect something so innocuous could play a part in such a sinister fate. Sure, everyone _knew_ that children could drown in bathtubs, but the Brennans had probably never believed it would happen to them, just like Meredith and Derek _knew_ that people could fall into frigid water, become hypothermic and drown, but would never have imagined it would happen in their lives…until Meredith had gone in.

Meredith had never been afraid of the water before. She had vague memories of a day trip to the beach with both of her parents when she was young—she'd been about three or four, and it had probably been the only time her mother had taken a vacation—and most of the fragmented images she'd retained from that day involved giggling and splashing in the waves. She liked water, but since she'd drowned, she'd been—not afraid, but…aware. Aware that things like bathtubs that seemed so innocent were really just deceptively calm, lurking with a dangerous potential to change everything in a matter of seconds. Even in Hawaii on Cristina's honeymoon, she'd avoided the ocean, preferring the resort pool to the gorgeous blue-green waves. She wasn't worried about drowning again, but there was something about the uncertainty of what she couldn't see—she wasn't exactly jumping to take another plunge into the unknown. But this—the lake on Derek's land—it was beautiful. Even if she couldn't see the bottom, the way the light hit the water, the way it made the mist glisten as it hung over the lake in a silvery sheen…it wasn't uncertain. It felt safe, and sure. It was peaceful…comforting. She could wake up to this every day for the rest of her life and never grow tired of it.

She almost had. Derek had wanted her here. He'd wanted to build them a house, here, on his land. It would have been theirs, she corrected herself. Their land, their house. She'd given that up—or Derek had, when he'd gone after Rose. If Rose had never happened…Meredith might have given in about the house, let him start building it—or at least planned it with him, since that was all he'd really asked. The foundation could have been poured by now. Walls might have been up already. Derek would have probably moved into her house so they could escape the construction. If Rose had never happened…everything could have been so different. Could have. Maybe not. If they'd never broken up over Rose, Meredith wouldn't have started seeing her therapist, which meant that they probably would have never talked like they did last night. Maybe…maybe Rose—or at least the breakup—had been one of the best things that _could_ have happened to them, if it got them talking like they had. If she had it to do over, she'd never _choose_ for Rose to happen, but then…she'd probably do a lot of things differently, and Rose would have never been an issue. They'd probably both make a lot of different choices if they could. But they couldn't. What was past was past, and they could only go forward and try to pick up the pieces and start fresh, make better choices in the future, try not to--

"There you are."

Meredith jumped, startled, and glanced over her shoulder, smiling softly at Derek as he made his way onto the dock. He'd put on his cross-trainers in lieu of his slippers, and he'd tucked a blanket under one arm. His hair was tousled from sleep, and his eyes were still heavy; he couldn't have been awake long. Without speaking, she turned back to the water. They'd done this often enough that she knew how it worked. He surprised her by sitting behind her, rather than taking his customary place by her side, and Meredith's breath hitched in her throat as she felt his arms wrap around her and pull her back against him. She looked back at him sharply, eyes wide in alarm, and slowly her expression changed to a hesitant smile. It had been a long time since she'd let him hold her like this—it was at once both unsettlingly new and comfortingly familiar.

She felt his breath rustle her hair as he nuzzled her gently. "You weren't in bed when I woke up," he murmured in her ear.

"Was I supposed to be?" she replied, trying to focus on his words and not how good his hands felt resting against her stomach.

"Mm," Derek hummed. The syllable vibrated against her neck as he rested his chin on her shoulder. "I wanted to wake up with you this morning. I was looking forward to it."

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I didn't know." She should have known; she'd been so content to lie with him when she'd woken up—of course he would have wanted it too. She understood the wanting; if she hadn't convinced herself that returning to bed would have woken him, he would have had the luxury of lounging in bed with her, letting the morning waste away simply because neither of them wanted to break the spell by being the first to get up. She would have blamed herself for messing up the illusion this morning—if he weren't holding her as they watched the mist rise off the water together. She was almost willing to say that _this_ was better than waking up together.

"It's okay," he shrugged. "Once I figured out that my shoes and robe were missing, I knew where to find you."

She smiled at the teasing tone of his voice and finally allowed herself to lean back into him. He adjusted for her weight, stretching his legs out in front of him so that her body angled his and she could recline against his chest. It wouldn't be comfortable for long, but for the moment, it was perfect. "I've missed this," Meredith said softly.

"Me too," Derek whispered. Meredith knew he didn't just mean being on the water. He meant being together, talking and sleeping and touching, even Meredith stealing his clothes. He missed the security that the familiarity of the routine conveyed. It was easy to pretend, especially after last night, that this was any other morning at the trailer, that what they were doing now—had always done—was something that had never stopped. She missed it all, too. "It gets cold by the water," Derek said after a few minutes. "I brought a blanket, if you want it."

Meredith remembered the blanket she'd seen him carrying, and her gaze fell on it, sitting on the dock by Derek's thigh. She recognized it as a particularly warm afghan—crocheted, Derek had told her, by his grandmother—that usually resided out of sight in the cabin above the bed, its practicality and sentimental value outweighed by the atrocious combination of olive green, orange, and brown yarns. Meredith lifted her head just enough to see Derek's face and raised one eyebrow skeptically. "What's the catch?"

He didn't even bother trying to suppress his smug grin. "You have to share it with me."

Meredith rolled her eyes even as a good-natured smile lit up her face. "Of course I do."

"You know, you've already got my shoes and my robe," he pointed out. "I'm in a t-shirt here, and I'm freezing. I think it's only fair that you share the blanket I was so thoughtful to bring."

"Too bad you weren't a little more thoughtful, or you could have brought two," Meredith replied dryly. "I think this is a little more than the selfless gesture you'd like me to think it is."

"Dr. Grey, I can't believe you'd accuse me of something like that," Derek feigned shock. "Spurning my altruism…insinuating ulterior motives…"

"Shut up and give me the blanket," Meredith huffed. He grinned and unfolded the afghan before wrapping it around them. Despite his declaration of "freezing", Meredith noticed that he made sure _she_ was fully covered before worrying about whether the blanket covered his exposed skin. She shifted slightly, arranging herself so that her weight didn't rest against him so awkwardly and he had access to more of the afghan. Meredith tucked her head against his neck again, and they settled into an easy silence. The sunlight gleamed on the water, giving everything a somewhat mystical quality. A trio of Canada geese glided across the water at the far end of the lake, near the spot where they'd seen a pair of otters playing in the spring. Meredith had loved them, thought their playful antics were hilarious; Derek hadn't been so thrilled—the otters had proved formidable opponents in the battle for trout. Meredith's laugh at the memory was barely audible, but it was enough to break the silence.

"So what are you doing out here?" Derek asked quietly. "I know you love it, but it _is_ December. It's pretty cold…"

"I was thinking," Meredith replied. The geese had disappeared behind a patch of tall reeds, and her full attention returned to the warmth of Derek's body surrounding her.

"Mm," she heard, rather than saw, him smile. "About what?"

She sighed softly; Derek was going to want to talk all the time, after last night. Even though she still experienced a quick flare of doubt, she decided she could confide in him again. "Stuff. Lacey Brennan, and last night," she paused. This was the big one—the one inviting all sorts of trouble. "The house."

"The house?" he repeated. His voice left no doubt how surprised he was.

"Yeah," she nodded. "The house you wanted to build." As if he'd needed the reminder.

"Mm," his laughter was tinged with a hint of bitterness. "The house you hated?"

"I didn't hate it," Meredith replied indignantly.

"Right," Derek scoffed. "You loved it and that's why you couldn't get the plans off your kitchen table fast enough."

"Derek—don't," Meredith sat up and turned to scowl at him. She hated when he was like this—he was being dark and ugly, and he was messing up her perfect morning. She was trying to share, and he wasn't being encouraging. But then—she remembered how excited he'd been about the house plans, and she _hadn't_ exactly acted like she was thrilled. She doubted this was a huge issue in their queue to address, but it was probably a sore spot for Derek. "Just—don't," her expression softened slightly. "I did like the house. I really did."

"You liked it?" he sounded genuinely surprised, but he did believe her now.

"I loved it," Meredith amended. "It was beautiful." She looked behind him toward the clearing and pictured the house sitting there, overlooking the water. She sighed happily. "It was…everything I'd ever dreamed of."

"But you didn't want it—" he shook his head in confusion. Meredith frowned; he was fighting it. He wanted to believe her, but he didn't want to accept that what he'd thought for so long had been wrong. She'd seen that look in his eyes several times last night.

"I never said that," Meredith argued, "_you_ did." She hesitated for a moment before admitting, "I just…it was a lot, Derek. I was scared. You were asking for a lot."

He brought one hand from under the blanket and brought it to her face, brushing his fingers along her cheekbone before smoothing her hair off her face. "But you wanted it?"

"I was scared to want it," she replied as she laid her head against his shoulder again. "But I did." She felt his chest sink with the exhale of a weary breath, and his right arm tightened around her waist while the fingers of his left combed through her hair slowly, catching occasionally on the tangles that had formed in her sleep. After several minutes, Meredith coughed to clear her throat and asked, "Where did you want to put it?"

"The house?" Derek replied. She nodded. "There's a clearing," he told her. "The view is…incredible."

"Oh," Meredith sounded much less than excited, she was sure. She'd always thought they'd build on the trailer site. She hadn't prepared for anything else.

Derek hadn't missed her uncertainty. "You'd like it, I think," he offered reassuringly.

She lifted her head and turned to face him. "Will you show me?"

"Yeah," he smiled. "Later."

"Why not now?" Her curiosity was piqued; she wanted to see this place that Derek apparently thought was more breath-taking than the water.

"Because I have to drive you there," he replied patiently. "It's not far from here—a couple of hundred yards through those trees, but it's really dense, and you're not dressed for a trek through the woods."

"If it's so dense then how are we going to get there?" she asked.

"If you kept following the gravel road, past where you turn off for the trailer…it winds up there," he explained. "It's a beautiful walk, but Mark ruined a good pair of shoes when we hiked up there, so I'll drive you up there after breakfast."

She vaguely caught the mention of breakfast, but she'd focused on something else. "You've taken Mark?" she asked, incredulous. "Mark saw where you wanted to build our house and you've never shown me?"

"I would have shown you if I thought you wanted me to," Derek said.

"I do," Meredith insisted. "I do want you to show me."

"After breakfast," Derek nodded. At the second mention of food, Meredith's stomach growled appropriately. She'd forgotten that she hadn't eaten since breakfast yesterday—or even kept that down.

Her eyes lit up. "Are you making me breakfast?"

"Mm," Derek replied, his eyes sparkling with a happiness she rarely saw in them anymore. "And you don't get to say no."

"I won't," Meredith assured him. "I'm starving."

"We'll go in whenever you want," he said. "I started a pot of coffee before I came out, so it'll be ready, too."

"Coffee?" Meredith repeated eagerly. Derek laughed and nodded again. "We can go in now," she decided immediately.

"I thought you might say that," he grinned as he stood up and gathered the afghan. He held out a hand and pulled her to her feet. She expected him to let go once she'd reclaimed her balance, but he didn't. She glanced down at their interlocked hands, but before she could decide whether she _wanted_ to let go, Derek followed her gaze and quickly dropped her hand.

She followed him back to the trailer, stopping just inside the door to take off his robe. She left his slippers next to her shoes—now dried, but unfortunately with mud still crusted around the edges. Still, it wasn't anything a spin through the washing machine couldn't fix.

Derek stepped around her and peered into the refrigerator. "What do you want to eat?"

"Surprise me," Meredith shrugged. That was probably a dangerous game to play—she was sure it would involve trout, which—while she didn't hate it—wasn't on the top of her list of things she wanted to eat this morning.

Derek looked over his shoulder and smiled. "Okay."

Meredith reached up to scratch her head, and frowned at the feel of her hair under her fingers. It wasn't _awful_, but she needed to do something about it. "Do I have time to get a shower while you're cooking?" she asked.

"Yeah, of course," Derek replied as he knelt to inspect the contents of another cabinet. "You um—you have some clothes you left here, if you don't want to wear the ones from last night."

"I do?" Meredith tried to think about which clothes she hadn't seen in a while, which ones she could have left at the trailer.

"Yeah. Check the cabin over the bed," Derek advised. He found a skillet and straightened to his full height. "Right side."

Meredith climbed onto his bed and stepped over a pillow, setting her feet at hip-width to steady herself. She slid the frosted glass aside and reached into the cabinet that had been designated "hers" since Derek had first brought her to the trailer—aside from the few months that Derek had apologized for, when Addison had taken over it for her shoes. "I've been looking everywhere for this sweater," Meredith called as she extracted one of her favorite V-necks, a dark indigo blue that she'd loved even before she knew how much Derek liked it on her.

"It's been here the whole time," Derek stepped into the short hall between the bedroom and kitchen. "You know where the towels are, and--" he opened the closet anyway and took out an extra sheet from the shelf above the towels. He shook the folds from the sheet and rigged it into a makeshift curtain between the bathroom area and the kitchen. "There," he smiled and disappeared behind the sheet. "That should give you a little more privacy. I promise I won't look."

"Thanks," Meredith replied. She looked in the cabinet and found a pair of jeans, a few more tops, and enough bras and panties to make her wonder exactly how many times she'd gone home without any underwear. She gathered enough clothes for a new outfit and glanced at the curtain to make sure Derek was keeping to his word and not peeping. She could hear him maneuvering cookware in the kitchen, so she quickly turned on the shower, shimmied out of her clothes, and stepped inside under the steady cascade of water.

The hot water felt wonderful against her skin, which was still chilled from the half-hour she'd spent outside. She shut her eyes and braced her feet against one wall as she leaned against the other, letting the water wash over her. For the first time since she'd woken up, reality hit her, crashing down with an overwhelming force. What the hell was she doing? She'd spent weeks trying to keep Derek at arm's length, and after one conversation—granted, a very, very good talk, and a much-needed one—she was sleeping over and cuddling with him on the dock and standing naked in his shower while he cooked breakfast for her ten feet away. Meredith liked pretending—she liked the idea that they could be okay—but they _weren't_, were they? They weren't together, and she'd given Derek so many mixed signals—she'd let him touch her and say things to her and she'd allowed herself to slip back into the intimacy that seemed so natural with him, and that wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to Derek, and it wasn't fair to herself. But it felt _right_. Everything about the morning with Derek had felt _right_.

She borrowed Derek's shampoo and conditioner to wash her hair; she'd smell like him for the rest of the day, but she didn't mind too much. She stayed in the shower longer than she could even pretend it had taken to wash her hair, but she couldn't make herself leave. She knew exactly what she would face outside the shower—breakfast with Derek and the promise of a morning perfect in its normalcy and completely devoid of dark and twisty. A fairytale, an illusion of what her life could be—what their life could be—if the bigger picture weren't so messy. Letting herself experience what she couldn't have was torture to them both—but then again, Meredith wasn't exactly a novice at self-destructive behaviors. Still, she stayed in the shower until the water turned cold, making her scramble to shut it off. She dried off with one of Derek's towels and wrapped it around herself as she made her way back to the bed for her clothes.

An enticing aroma had filled the small trailer—eggs, she thought, and something that smelled not at all fishy. No trout then. "That smells great," she called as she hooked her bra behind her back.

"It should be done in a few minutes," Derek replied. "I went outside and got your car out of the mud before I started cooking."

Meredith tugged her jeans on frowned as they slid low on her hips; she wondered if there was a belt stashed in the cabinet with her other clothes. "I would have helped—" she protested. She'd never meant for him to have to push her car free by himself. She pulled her sweater on over her head and was satisfied when it covered the top of her jeans; she could do without a belt after all.

"It wasn't hard," he assured her. He looked up and grinned as she pushed back the sheet-curtain and stepped into the kitchen. "Do you want to take down plates for us?"

She went automatically to the first cabinet past the refrigerator and grabbed two plates, which she placed on the counter next to the stove. As soon as her hands were free, Derek pressed a mug full of coffee into them.

"You are amazing," Meredith grinned. She peeked over his shoulder as she took a sip of coffee. "You're making pancakes? You're spoiling me."

"I'm encouraging you," he corrected, "so that last night happens again. Often."

"The talking or the sleeping over?" Meredith asked.

"Both," Derek picked up the first plate and loaded it with food for her. "There's syrup in the fridge if you want it."

She fished the bottle of maple syrup from the fridge and drizzled it over her pancakes while Derek prepared his own plate, and then joined him at the small table. It was close, and though they'd never minded the cramped quarters before, Meredith wished that there was more free space under the table—or else that Derek's legs weren't quite so long. Every time she felt him brush against her—even though she knew it was accidental--it served to remind her how badly she wanted this to be their normal—and how terrified she was to allow it again.

They ate quietly for several minutes before Derek sighed loudly and dropped his fork to his plate. "Meredith—what are we doing?"

She looked up sharply and swallowed her bite of eggs. "What?"

"What does all this mean?" Derek demanded.

Meredith could have played stupid, asked what he meant, but she knew. She hadn't been the only one wondering why they were keeping up the façade, when someone was going to stop pretending and acknowledge that they were just playing house, ignoring the fact that they'd been broken up for five weeks. "I don't know," she admitted.

"I have to go to the hospital today," Derek began urgently, "just for a few hours, to check on my patients. Come with me and let me take you to lunch after."

"Derek—" Meredith started weakly.

He interrupted before she could finish her objection. "Or dinner tonight."

"I'm working tonight," she replied.

"Tomorrow night, then," Derek suggested.

Meredith put her fork down too and sighed in frustration. "It's a forty-eight hour shift, Derek. You helped make my schedule, you know that."

"Monday night, then," he insisted. 'I _know_ you're off then."

Meredith could hardly stand meeting his eyes with him staring at her so intensely. He wanted this _so_ badly it was written on every inch of his face. She was afraid he wasn't going to give up this time. "I can't," she whispered desperately. "Derek—I—I'm seeing someone."

His face went blank for one second before his expression twisted into a scowl and his eyes went dark. "Oh."

Meredith's stomach twisted with guilt. This was the second time she'd done this, made him jealous in her efforts to keep him from finding out. She had to tell him the truth, all of it. "Derek—not like that. God, I'm stupid…a therapist, Derek," she blurted. "I'm seeing a therapist. I'm in therapy."

He stared at her, speechless with shock. Finally, he blinked and managed, with great effort, to form words. "You're…what?"

"The doctor's appointments that I keep going to? The ones you've been worried about?" Meredith sighed. "They're with my therapist."

He took his face in his hands and rubbed his temples slowly. "You're in therapy."

"No one knows, not even Cristina," Meredith said. "I'm going to someone outside the hospital. She's…really helping me, I think. But I don't…I don't want everyone to know. Please don't tell anyone."

"I won't," he promised. He looked up and a hesitant smile crept onto his face. "I'm really the first person you've told about this?"

"Yeah," she offered a smile of her own. He wasn't freaking out. He knew about the drowning. He knew about the shrink, and still—_still_—he didn't think she was crazy. He wasn't running away. Driven by the confidence fostered by that realization, she continued, "I've been seeing her since we broke up. When we had that fight, and you told me I'd always look for something to make me not trust you—I don't want to be that person, Derek. I'd already tried to do it on my own and it wasn't working, so I figured maybe I should get some help this time, so I'm not some commitment phobic, not trusting person for the rest of my life. I want to trust you, Derek, it's just—"

"I haven't made it easy for you," he finished.

She nodded. "You lied about Addison. You promised me you'd sign divorce papers and then I was left to get trashed at Joe's while you went back to your wife. And then later…you promised me you'd show up, and you didn't. You told me you'd wait, and I found out about Rose." She stopped when she realized that his face fell a little more with each accusation. She was being mean again—truthful, but not exactly tactful. "It's not just you, though," she conceded. "You were right, when you said I didn't trust anyone. I'm working on it. Last night…last night was my leap of faith. I was afraid I'd get hurt if you knew what happened the day I drowned…I was afraid to tell you."

"But you did," Derek said. "Does that mean you trust me?"

"It means I'm trying," Meredith replied.

"I think you trust me," he smiled hopefully. "We talked more last night than we did when we were together, Mere. And you told me about your therapist."

"I'm trying." She wasn't willing to give him any more than that; she wasn't sure she trusted him completely yet, but she was making an effort. And so far, he was rewarding her for it.

He nodded thoughtfully and took a sip of his coffee. "I think your therapist would be interested to know that you slept with me last night."

"I did not!" Meredith yelped and her face flushed with a sudden rise of heat. "I mean…I did sleep with you, but I didn't _sleep_ with you. I slept with you…as in sleeping. There was no sex—just, sleeping." She stopped stammering when she realized that Derek was shaking with the effort of restraining his laughter. "You ass!" she threw her napkin at him indignantly. "You did that on purpose!" She hoped he was grateful that she hadn't thrown her coffee in his face instead.

"You're cute when you're flustered," he grinned and tossed her napkin back at her. "Finish your breakfast. I'm going to go get dressed, and then I'll show you the clearing."

He disappeared behind the sheet and Meredith picked her fork up, poking at her breakfast but only taking a few more bites. Derek wasn't back yet, so she emptied her plate into the trash and left the dish in the sink. She opened a cupboard and took down a portable coffee cup, transferring what remained in her mug before topping it off with fresh coffee from the pot. She'd just snapped the lid on when she heard Derek's footsteps behind her.

He thrown on a pair of dark jeans and paired them with his favorite red shirt—the good-looking red shirt. Meredith had never understood why he liked that one so much—he _did_ look good in it (good enough that she'd taken him home that first night in the bar) but she preferred him in blue. "Ready?" he asked as he grabbed his coat from the back of the couch. "Put that on," he handed her the coat.

"What about you?" she protested.

He held up his leather jacket for her inspection before he shrugged into it. "Go ahead and put on that coat," he insisted. "You'll freeze when we get there if you don't have it on."

She slipped his coat on obediently and grabbed her shoes as she followed him out to the Range Rover. He held her door open and helped her inside behind hurrying around and climbing into the driver's seat. "The heat has been acting up for a couple of days," he apologized as he turned the key in the ignition, "but hopefully it'll cooperate today. If not, there are some gloves in the glove compartment."

"That's appropriate," Meredith said dryly. "Derek, when you said clearing, did you mean ice field? Because you're acting like we're going to a glacier."

"It gets windy sometimes," he explained. "I don't want to ruin the surprise for you, but just trust me. If the wind is blowing when we get there, you'll be cold."

"Fine," she muttered as she bent over to put her shoes on. "So how far is this drive?"

"Not far," he replied. "Like I said, it's just a round-about way of getting there. But it's gorgeous, Mere, really—"

"I believe you," Meredith smiled. "So how did you find this place?"

"The road was only paved halfway up there when I bought the land," Derek replied. "I bought it for the water, so I'd never really explored all the way up the road until you gave me Doc. We were walking one morning—before you and I started walking him together—and wandered up there."

She frowned as the truck bumped and jolted over the rocky path. Her breakfast was not sitting well on her stomach with this much movement. "I miss Doc," she said in an effort to take her mind off of her sudden bout of carsickness.

"Me too," Derek agreed. He threw out an arm to steady her as one of the front tires dipped into a pothole. "Sorry, I forgot about that one. Anyway—yeah, I miss Doc, too. I miss loading him in the truck and coming to meet you for our walks. He always knew—it was our secret…"

"Our adulterous secret," Meredith retorted.

Derek shot an annoyed glare at her. "It wasn't about adultery, Meredith. It wasn't about cheating on Addison. It was about being with you." He shifted the truck into park and Meredith lurched forward at the sudden stop. "Close your eyes."

"What? Why?" she demanded.

"Just do it," he replied. "We're here. I wanted to surprise you with this."

"Fine," she rolled her eyes, but shut them compliantly. She heard him open his door, and heard the crunch of the leaves under his shoes. Her door opened, and she felt his fingers brush against her hand. One of his hands steadied her back as he helped her down, and he left it there as he led her hand-in-hand down the remainder of the path. She felt the gravel under her feet, and was thankful for Derek's support as the shifting rocks threw off her balance. She figured that they must have gone about forty feet before Derek stopped and released his hand.

"Okay. Open them."

Meredith didn't need to be told twice, and she gasped in surprise as her eyes took in the scene before her. It really was breathtaking. She could see…everything spread out below her; it had to be almost the entirety of Bainbridge. Far in the distance she could make out the Sound and the harbor, complete with their beloved ferryboats. No wonder Derek had fallen in love with it. "Wow."

"You like it?" she turned to see Derek next to her, grinning broadly.

She nodded and slowly canvassed the rest of the clearing behind her. "It's…beautiful." It was a good-sized lot, more than big enough for the house Derek had wanted to build, secluded and private, and the view was truly unparalleled.

"Mere… about the house," Derek said hesitantly. "I wasn't trying to call your bluff, not completely. I wanted you to want it. I knew it was too soon. I knew I was pushing too hard, but I…even though I knew it would probably push you away, I hoped it wouldn't. I hoped you'd surprise me. I wanted you to want it like I did."

"I did want it," she'd told him that already this morning, but she knew he'd feel better for hearing it again. "But we weren't ready. I wasn't ready. I wanted it, just…not so soon."

"A hundred steps from our dream house," Derek remembered with a wistful smile.

"Yeah." She took a seat on the grass, looking out over the edge at the landscape below. Derek sat near her, and in her peripheral vision, she could see him watching her anxiously. Excitement practically radiated from him; he wanted her to like this—to like the spot where he'd envisioned their future being grounded—so badly. She did like it—but she wasn't sure she liked it enough not to disappoint him. Rather than tell him that yes, it was beautiful, but no, it wasn't everything she'd ever wanted, she tugged at the grass, pulling up clumps and breaking blades in her fists. If Derek minded her destroying his lawn, he didn't say anything, leaving her to her thoughts.

She could have had this. Could still have it. This could be her life. Waking up to Derek every morning—well, maybe not every, because they _were_ surgeons and there would undoubtedly be times that their shifts didn't line up—and watching the mist rising from the lake together, breakfast and showering (maybe not always alone) and talking. It was so simple, so uncomplicated—so _functional_. It was perfect because it _was _so incredibly normal. She'd never known normal before—and she wanted it desperately.

"Did you think we'd never fight?" Meredith asked suddenly.

"What?" Derek replied. He was used to her questions coming out of the blue as her train of thought became vocalized, but sometimes she still managed to catch him off guard.

"Fighting," Meredith repeated. "Did you think we'd never fight, Derek?" She turned to look at him and sighed. "That last one…when I mentioned Addison and the trusting…you rolled your eyes and asked if we were going to have that fight again. Did you think we were never going to fight again? That if I grew up and got ready for you, I'd turn into a Stepford wife and life would be sunshines and—roses?"

She hadn't thought about the implication of that phrase until the words left her mouth, but they conjured the same image for him as they had for her. He winced. "I don't want a Stepford wife. I want you."

"That's not what I asked," she shook her head stubbornly and crumbled a dead leaf with her fingers. "You said you were tired of fighting with me. Did you think we'd never fight again?"

"No. We'll fight, Mere. Addison and I fought. You and I have fought. And Addison—as much as I hate thinking about what I did to you back then, that time is something we need to work through. I know I said I was tired of having that fight, but it wasn't really about Addison," he sighed heavily. "It was a different kind of fighting—I was tired of nothing I did being enough for you to trust me. I was tired of fighting to make you love me, to make you want me."

"I'm trying," Meredith murmured. "With the trusting." And she did want him. Love him. She wasn't ready to tell him that—but it was no less true, and judging by the look in his eyes, he didn't need her to tell him. He wanted her to say it, but if she wouldn't…he at least knew.

"I know," he smiled. She turned her attention back to the view beyond the cliff, and after a moment, she felt Derek's hand rest over hers. His thumb rubbed her wrist bone slowly, tenderly, as she tried to redefine the future she'd imagined for them, replacing the house in her head with this location. "I'm not trying to rush you," Derek said reluctantly, "but I need to get to the hospital."

"Okay," Meredith let him help her up, and then returned to the car and climbed inside without speaking. As they started back to the trailer, the Range Rover rumbling over the uneven ground and sending Meredith's stomach on another roller coaster, Derek cast a concerned glance in her direction.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Don't tell me nothing. Something's bothering you."

She didn't want to tell him. He'd been so excited about it—his feelings would be hurt if he knew—but then again, his mind had gravitated to very dangerous conclusions as of late when she kept things from him. "I always thought we'd build by the water," she admitted. "Where the trailer is."

"You don't like the clearing?" Meredith's heart sank; he looked incredibly wounded, like she'd just told him that she'd killed his favorite childhood pet.

"I do like it. It's beautiful," she assured him. "It's just—not what I'd been planning for in my head. It's different. Not bad. Just different. That's all."

"You've been planning?" he asked. She rolled her eyes. Of course he would have latched onto that _one_ phrase, and now all the hopes she'd just dashed with her ambivalence for the proposed house site had been resurrected and reinforced.

She pretended that she hadn't heard him and changed the subject. "What happened to the Chief? His trailer's gone."

"Yeah," Derek nodded. "I asked him to leave a few weeks ago. Not long before that fundraiser for your mother, actually."

"Did he do something?" Meredith asked. "Besides walk in on us in bed?"

Derek laughed. "No, not really. I just—I don't know what I was thinking letting him come out here. I thought I was being nice, but the Chief—he's a very annoying neighbor. It wasn't working out."

"So where is he now? Back in the Archfield?" The car jolted suddenly and Meredith barely caught herself on the dash before her head smacked the windshield. "Damn it, Derek, did you forget that one, too?"

"Sorry," he apologized. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "So the Chief?"

"Ah," Derek remembered. "Yeah, I think he's back at the hotel for now. I think he'd like Adele to take him back, but in the meantime, he's looking for an apartment. I'm not sure, honestly, I'm just glad that he's not here anymore."

The trailer came into view in front of them, and Meredith was glad the Chief was gone, too. It had been weird having him there, even before he'd interrupted sex. The land was Derek's—a secret he'd shared with her and only her in the beginning—and having the Chief there had been an unwelcome intrusion in her mind. She knew Derek would have kicked him out in a heartbeat if she'd just said the word, but according to the rules of sex and mockery, they'd had no input in whom the other chose as roommates.

"Coming?"

She realized Derek was already out of the truck, watching her expectantly. She smiled weakly and hopped down to the ground. Back inside the trailer, she slipped off her shoes and curled up cross-legged on Derek's bed. Derek slipped into the bathroom and she heard the muted hiss of the sink.

"Mere?" he reappeared in the doorway, toothbrush in hand as he spread toothpaste onto it. "If you want the house here by the water—if your heart is set on that—we can build by the water."

Her heart skipped a beat; he was willing to give up the clearing for her? He _wanted_ the clearing—he wanted the house and the picket fences, and…

_I want that life, Mere. I want you more._

She remembered him telling her that it scared him how much he was willing to give up for her. She wasn't exactly at ease with it either. She _knew_ what the house and the dream meant to him. He'd stood in her kitchen the morning he'd shown her the house plans, and she'd seen how excited he was about it, how he'd planned everything in intricate detail. And in one morning, one line from one conversation, he was willing to change a huge piece of his dream—just because she wanted something else. He wasn't fighting, wasn't trying to convince her of the merits of his plan—it wasn't a Derek thing to do, and it scared her. "Derek—we're not building a house," she stammered. "We're not back together."

In an instant, he went from eager and hopeful to dejected and crestfallen. He frowned and sighed, "Right."

Meredith felt like crying; she was an idiot. She hadn't meant to hurt him—she just hadn't known what to say when he offered, so she'd said the first thing on her mind and that almost _never_ worked out well. "We could be, though. I'm working on it, Derek," she called after him. "I've…I've been talking to my therapist about you. Us. Maybe trying again."

She heard him spit out his toothpaste, and a moment later he was standing in front of her, his normally steady hands shaking as he tried to decide whether he'd heard her correctly. She swallowed hard and continued nervously, "I don't know if I'm ready yet…but I'm trying to figure it out. There's a lot you and I have to work through, Derek—"

"Come to lunch with me," he pleaded again, taking her face in his hands. "We'll work through it together."

"It doesn't work that way, Derek," she replied. "I just…I need some time to think, okay?"

The mattress creaked as he sat next to her. "Think about what?"

"Everything," she shook her head. "Last night. What it means for us."

"It means something," he said desperately. "Meredith—stop fighting. Just…stop. We can do this—you can talk to me, we can talk about things, like last night--"

"I know," Meredith nodded. "Last night was…really important to me, and you were great. You did—everything right. It's a good start." She paused and took a deep breath. She _wanted_ to listen to him. She wanted to stop fighting herself and just jump in, take the plunge. Her leap of faith hadn't left her face-down in the mud. It had worked out and she'd just spent an almost perfect morning with Derek—she wanted that back in her life. She wanted _him_ back in her life, but she needed to be sure that the time was right.

"Just give me a few days to figure out what all this means. If…if we do this again, Derek, it has to be for good. I can't handle being hurt again. I need you to give me time to figure out if I'm ready or not. I don't want to have to decide today, because last night was wonderful, but I need…perspective. I need to make sure that I'm not jumping into something I'm unprepared for just because of one great night."

"Okay," he agreed, albeit reluctantly. "I can handle that. I don't want to push you, Meredith. I've learned my lesson about forcing you into things you aren't ready for, and I'm willing to wait as long as it takes, but I want this, Mere. I want mornings like this again. I want nights like last night—maybe without the crying, but the talking—I want that. I want us together, really together."

"I know," Meredith murmured. "I do, too, just—"

"You'll come to me when you're ready," Derek smiled softly and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. "I need to go, but you can stay as long as you want."

"Thanks. I think I'll clean up from breakfast and then go home," she decided.

He laughed as he stood up and fished his car keys from his pocket. "Isn't that a bit…domestic for you?" he teased.

"Shut up and go to work," she replied indignantly. "I'll see you when—whenever." She wondered if he'd caught her near-slip. She'd almost said "when you get home", before remembering that he didn't come home to her anymore. Yet. He could…might…_would_, maybe, come home to her again soon.

If he'd noticed, he didn't let on. "Bye, Mere. I'll see you later."

He left her sitting on his bed, and as she heard his car start again, she fell back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. She hated being confused. She hated that it took her so long to convince herself that she _could_ have, _did_ deserve the things that made her happy. She hated the dark and twisty parts of her, the jaded parts that didn't believe in happiness, when the last twenty-four hours had proven that happy was more than possible. She'd beaten the fear once and made that frightening jump into uncertainty—and Derek had caught her. She'd trusted him and he'd shown her that she hadn't made a mistake by doing so—and just to drive the point home, he'd made her morning perfect, too.

Dark-and-twisty Meredith would say that it was easy to believe in perfect, to believe in the fairytale, when she was here, isolated in Derek's trailer on the island, away from complications and obstacles. Derek wasn't about to make a misstep, send her running away. Meredith didn't want to listen to the dark and twisty anymore. Derek _was_ treading carefully, but their problems followed them around. There was no such thing as escaping them. Addison and Rose didn't have to be physically present to haunt her. The demons from Meredith's drowning had stayed with Derek constantly. And there had been potential for strife today—they'd skirted around other issues—the house, Addison, what exactly there were now; they could have fought over any of those, and they hadn't. It didn't mean that she and Derek didn't need to discuss them—but they didn't have to fight every battle in one day. They had problems. All couples had problems. But if last night and this morning had shown Meredith anything, it was that she and Derek _were_ capable of working through things. Together.

They were close. It scared her, but she knew they were close. She was tempted to call him on his cell phone, make him come back, and go to the hospital with him, figure the rest out later. She didn't. It probably _was_ a good idea to take time to process these recent developments—alone. Just to be sure that her head and her heart were on the same page, that she wasn't diving headfirst into dangerous waters that _seemed_ safe in the morning light. Derek understood, too. He understood that she didn't want to make a big decision when she was still recovering from the heated emotions of the day before. It wasn't a decision to make lightly, and he knew that. He was giving her the time she needed. She'd talk to Dr. Hadden on Monday, too; even though she knew the therapist wouldn't give her personal advice, she made an excellent sounding board, and that was all Meredith really needed. Someone to talk _at_ while she talked herself into what she already wanted.

She peeled herself off of Derek's bed with great effort and trudged into the kitchen. Derek had been right to laugh at her—domesticity was not her strong point. She would have failed home economics in high school if Ellis hadn't gone to the principal and insisted that Meredith's intelligence would be wasted in such a frivolous class and had her transferred into advanced chemistry instead. Still, she knew how to scrape leftover eggs into a trashcan and load a dishwasher, and she knew enough to only use liquid detergent for hand washing. She poured out the leftover coffee—now cold and stale—and rinsed out the pot, changing the filter so it would be fresh for Derek in the morning, and then wiped down the counter and table for good measure. After she'd dried her hands on a paper towel and thrown it away, she surveyed her work with a proud smile. She was no culinary goddess, but she wasn't _completely_ useless in the kitchen after all. And besides, she didn't need to know how to cook—she had Derek for that. _Would _have Derek for that. Soon.

Meredith found a notepad and a pen in one of the kitchen drawers and quickly scribbled a note for Derek. _Thank you for last night—and this morning. The talking. We'll do it again. I'm thinking, I promise. _With nothing else to do, Meredith sat down to put her shoes back on and found her car keys tucked into the couch cushions. As she started to leave, she thought about the clothes stashed above Derek's bed. For a moment, she considered taking them with her, then decided against it. She could leave them here—for next time. She'd be back soon.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: For those of you who don't follow the progress on new updates in my livejournal: at the end of the week, I will have family members coming to stay for about a month. Combined with the new job, I have no idea how much time/privacy I will have over the next few weeks to write. I will do my best to keep up with weekly updates, but I'm making no guarantees. Just wanted to give you warning, so that if I do disappear for a little longer than normal, you don't think I've abandoned this story--and of course, you can check in at the livejournal. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated, so if you have a moment, please consider leaving a note with your thoughts.**

Derek liked to pretend that he was a patient man. Pretend, because in his most honest moments, he knew that he was often most decidedly not patient—especially when it came to Meredith. He tried. He tried to be patient for her, because it was what she wanted—needed—and he had a hard time denying her anything she asked of him, but it was hard. It was hard not to touch her freely, to not brush his fingers against her wrist when they talked, to resist the near constant impulse to kiss her, to remember that even if he needed to be near her like he needed air, all that attention made her feel suffocated. It was hard, not being able to actively show her, remind her, how much he loved her. But he was trying. Trying to wait for her. And Meredith was trying, too.

He'd still been enjoying the contentment and hope that her overnight visit had given him when he'd arrived at work Sunday afternoon. He'd known that she'd be working, and he'd quickly located her name on the OR board. Even though he'd had patients to check on, he'd slipped up to the gallery to observe her surgery for a few minutes; she hadn't noticed him, and he hadn't seen her again until hours later, when he'd visited all his patients, made an effort to dent the stacks of paperwork on his desk, and packed up to go home. It had been nearly seven o'clock, and he'd found her curled up in a chair in the second-floor waiting area, a paper cup of tepid coffee in one hand and her eyes, heavily hooded with fatigue, focused on the chart in her lap.

"_Anything good?" he'd asked as he approached her chair._

_She'd looked up sharply and offered a hesitant smile. "Broken arm. Kid fell of a horse this morning. Compound fracture of the radius."_

"_So nothing exciting," he'd concluded. "How are you feeling?"_

"_Ask me in a few minutes when the coffee kicks in," she'd replied dryly._

"_You should try to get some sleep," he'd suggested. "Things should quiet down later tonight, unless traumas come in."_

_She'd nodded. "I will. I might have to fight for my on-call room, though. I've seen one of the fifth-year OB residents eyeing it."_

"_You could take her," Derek had said confidently. "Or, if you want, you can crash in my office."_

_She'd quirked an eyebrow at him. "Your office?"_

"_Yeah. I'm on my way home; it'll be empty. Nice and quiet. All yours if you want it," he'd reached into his coat pocket for his keys and unhooked the ring holding his office key. She'd eyed it hesitantly, and he'd sighed and dangled it over her hand. "Just take the key, Meredith. It won't hurt my feelings if you don't use my office, but at least you'll have it if you want it."_

She'd pocketed it with a soft smile and they'd said goodbye, but Derek was still pleasantly surprised to arrive at work Monday morning and find Meredith curled up on his office couch. Her head rested on a pillow she'd filched from a supply closet or unattended on-call room, and he recognized her blanket as the lab coat he'd left hanging on the back of the door after seeing his patients the afternoon before. Her own lab coat, he noticed, was folded neatly over the back of his chair, and the key to his office rested on his keyboard. Derek crept around the office in the dark, unpacking his briefcase and hanging his coat while praying not to wake her. He didn't know how long she'd been there, but on a forty-eight hour shift, there was no such thing as a long enough nap. She'd have to be up soon for rounds, but for now, he'd let her sleep as long as he could.

When the clock on the wall hit six-thirty, Derek looked at her and sighed regretfully. He couldn't let her sleep any longer. He perched on the edge of the couch and reached out to smooth her hair off her face. "Meredith?" he murmured softly. "Meredith, wake up." She stirred slightly, whimpering in protest and throwing an arm over her face. "Come on, Mere," he persisted, guiding her arm back to her side and rubbing her shoulder. "You've got to get up. Meredith—" He stopped abruptly as her eyes fluttered open and she gasped a short breath. Derek ran his hand over her hair again and smiled warmly. "Hey," he whispered.

"Hi," her voice was raspy and hoarse from lack of use, and she rubbed the back of one hand over her eyes sleepily.

He couldn't help but grin as he watched her. This was what he'd missed, what he'd wanted the other morning. He loved watching her sleep, but even more, he loved being the first thing she saw when she woke up. "Good morning."

She blinked at him and squinted at her watch. In the dark, she couldn't make out the numbers, so she let her arm fall back to her side. "What time is it?" she groaned.

"A little after six-thirty," Derek replied. "Did you get any sleep?"

"Mm, yeah," she yawned. "I came in here about one-fifteen…"

"Five hours," Derek nodded. "That's pretty good." It was better than pretty good—it was almost unheard of for a night on-call. Then again, she'd officially switched to plastics duty at midnight, and he imagined that there weren't too many emergency nose jobs to perform at that hour. "Easy night?"

She shut her eyes and turned away from him, settling on her side with her face pressed against the back of the couch. "Yeah."

Derek reached across her body to grip her shoulder and roll her back toward him gently. "Sit up," he said, "I brought you coffee. I saw Mark pull up when I was coming in, and as soon as he gets to his office, he'll be paging you. You want to be awake before then."

"Can't you pull some strings and get me a few more hours to sleep?" Meredith mumbled as she pulled his lab coat over her face.

"Mm, no," Derek smirked. She wasn't usually this difficult to wake, but he was enjoying the challenge. "I wish I could. What time is your shift over?"

He wedged one hand between her side and the couch cushions and held her hand with the other; she groaned as he carefully pulled her up into a sitting position. "Six." Her head fell against him so that her forehead rested on his shoulder, forcing him to support her dead weight with one hand on her back and the other behind her neck.

"When's your appointment with the therapist?" he asked as he slid one hand slowly up her back, tracing her spine with his fingertips. He hadn't forgotten about her next session, and he hoped that he'd get an answer to all the thinking she'd supposedly been doing over the weekend, once she'd talked to the therapist. He'd promised her that he'd be patient, and he was determined not to push her, not to ask her—but it didn't stop him from wondering what was going on in her head and hoping that she'd clue him in soon.

"Seven," she replied. "Until eight."

"Meredith, you're going to be exhausted," he shook his head. The movement made her head fall from his shoulder; she reluctantly leaned back and looked up to meet his eyes.

"I know," she sighed. "It's okay, though. I'll probably go to bed as soon I get home tonight." She paused and her forehead creased with the extreme effort required to concentrate on anything other than her fatigue. "Did you say something about coffee?"

Derek laughed and stood up to return to his desk. He grabbed a plain brown bag and one of the two cups he'd bought on his way to the hospital. "Here," he handed the bag to her after she'd stabilized the coffee between her knees, "I got this, too. It was there when I got your coffee and I thought I might get hungry later, but if you want it—"

"Liar," she interrupted as she peeked into the bag.

He tried to restrain a smirk from betraying him. "What?" he said innocently.

"You're lying!" she cried. "This is _not_ a cafeteria muffin. This is from the bakery two blocks over."

He couldn't hold back the grin anymore, not when she was smiling like she was and her eyes were shining with happiness. "Is it still your favorite?" he asked.

"Yes," she nodded and removed the giant blueberry muffin from the bag. "But you shouldn't have; bribery will get you nothing."

"It's not bribery. It's making sure you have something on your stomach so you don't pass out today," Derek corrected her.

"I don't need you to take care of me," Meredith insisted, even as she broke off a piece with her fingers and popped it into her mouth.

"I know," Derek smiled. "But that doesn't mean I can't try every once in a while. If you don't want the muffin, I can throw it away—"

She glared at him and shielded the food with her free hand. "Don't you dare."

"I wouldn't," he assured her. He frowned slightly at the crumbs beginning to accumulate on his lab coat and took her food away with one hand—earning a muffled yelp of protest (her mouth was too full to speak)—before he could yank away his coat and return her breakfast to her lap. "Go ahead, eat and drink before Mark pages you," he suggested. "I've got some paperwork to do, but you won't bother me if you stay in here."

Now that she was awake, he could turn on the overhead light, and he did so on his way to his chair. He was aware of Meredith just feet away, picking at her breakfast and sipping her coffee, but he right now—he didn't feel the need to smother her with his attention. She was here. She'd slept in his office—stolen his lab coat and wrinkled it (not that he minded too much, if it meant that he'd be catching whiffs of lavender the rest of the day)—and she was here. It was something. It wasn't everything he wanted for them, but it was a start, and for this morning, it was enough. He'd take more if she offered it, but if she didn't—this was enough for the moment.

He flipped through the ever-growing stack of paperwork on his desk, sorting them into piles based on priority. The medical journals went into the "take home and ready eventually" queue, while the time cards he'd neglected to sign Friday—the chaos of Lacey Brennan and Meredith had more than distracted him from the administrative aspects of his job—needed to be taken care of immediately and sent down to HR. His emails were slightly easier to sort through—three reminders from his sisters about the arrangements for his flight home, the latest correspondence from an old colleague in New York, an email requesting a consult from Mercy West, plus a half-dozen advertisements that had managed to slip through the hospital's spam filters. He decided to tackle the emails first—HR wouldn't open until eight anyway—and started on a response to Mercy West.

After a few minutes, Meredith's voice, hesitant and soft, tore his attention away from the computer. "I have been thinking," she offered. "About everything."

Derek looked up and smiled weakly. "I wasn't going to ask." He hoped that she didn't really think he'd brought her breakfast as a bribe. He'd agreed to give her time, and he'd intended to keep his word.

"I just—I didn't want you to think that I wasn't," Meredith started babbling in that endearing way of hers. "Because I am. I don't know anything definitely yet, but I _have_ been thinking. I wanted you to know that."

"Thank you for telling me," he said. He wanted to know what, exactly, she'd been thinking, but he didn't want her to be uncomfortable, to feel pressured to give him an answer. She was nervous enough as it is; she'd come to him when she was ready, and he had to accept that, even if the ambiguity of that timeline drove him crazy. He'd be okay if she took a while to decide; he didn't like it—because he _wasn't_ typically a patient person—but he'd be okay. He'd rather wait and have her than make her choose now and have her decision _not_ be the one he wanted. The waiting was infuriating, but Meredith was worth it. _Anything_ was worth the effort to have his life with her back.

He'd just turned back to his email when Meredith stood up and moved to his desk, placing her coffee on the corner. He sensed her standing behind his chair as he finished his reply to Mercy West with a suggested time for a preliminary phone consult. "Are you looking forward to this weekend?" she asked softly.

"This weekend?" he repeated, furrowing his brow as he pressed the send button.

"Going home," Meredith clarified. "Seeing your family?"

"Oh—yeah," he sighed and spun his chair around to face her. It took everything he had _not_ to grab her waist and pull her into his lap. "It'll be good to see everyone again."

"Are you still going to be gone a week?" she asked.

"Yeah. Going to miss me?" he grinned. She'd made a good effort at trying to make her question sound like polite conversation, but she couldn't slip that past him. Unless he'd read her completely wrong—and he was sure he hadn't--she wasn't happy about him being away for so long. Her cheeks flushed a light shade of pink, confirming his suspicions.

She refused to acknowledge that he'd caught her, and instead held out the remaining half of the muffin. "Do you want some?"

"A bite," he nodded. "Thanks."

The door to Derek's office swung open suddenly, heralding Mark's entrance. He strode inside with his usual confident swagger, but stopped abruptly when he saw Meredith. He looked from Derek to Meredith and back to Derek again, trying to process the scene. "Am I interrupting?" he asked.

"No," Derek and Meredith replied in unison.

"Good," Mark nodded. "Grey, glad you're here. I need pre-op done on my patient in 2712. I want to be cutting in an hour, sharp."

Meredith frowned apologetically at Derek and took her lab coat from the back of his chair. "I have to go," she said as she shrugged the coat onto her shoulders. "Thank you for breakfast." She grabbed her coffee and quickly slipped past Mark and into the hallway.

Mark craned his head to watch her leave, and then turned back to Derek. "Did you learn nothing in medical school? Why are you letting her have caffeine?" he sniped.

Derek didn't bother toning down the annoyance in his voice. "Because she's on the last twelve of a forty-eight and she's tired."

"And _pregnant_," Mark stressed.

Derek shot up from his chair and peered into the hallway, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw no sign that Meredith—or anyone else--was still within earshot. "Shut up before someone hears you!" he hissed at Mark as he shut the door.

"Oh, sorry. Are you waiting until her second trimester to tell people?" Mark asked. "I'll be more discreet."

"She's not pregnant, you idiot," Derek growled. "What do you want?"

"I can't just come visit?" Mark grinned cockily.

"No, you can't," Derek muttered darkly. Not when it meant interfering with his time with Meredith; she'd been here a minute ago, and then Mark showed up and ordered her away. Derek should have been able to have a few more minutes with her, and now, she was gone _and_ Mark was spewing his ridiculous pregnancy conspiracy theories again.

"I was going to ask if you'd take Kate's Christmas present with you when you go home," Mark said. "You are going home for Christmas, right?"

Some of Derek's ire ebbed, replaced by surprise. "You got my mother a gift?"

"I always have," Mark shrugged. "So will you do it?"

"Yeah, just bring it here to the office and I'll make sure she gets it," Derek agreed.

He'd forgotten—maybe intentionally—how close Mark had always been to Derek's mother. Mark's own mother had spent every holiday season going to parties, and Mark had always wound up sharing in the simple, familiar Christmas traditions of the Shepherd family. Kate hadn't given a second thought to bringing Mark into the fold like a second son, even giving him his own stocking to hang on the Shepherds' fireplace mantle. Mark had started giving Kate gifts on his first Christmas with the Shepherds, and she'd gushed over the presents he'd bought with his allowance money as though they were diamonds from Tiffany. Kate still kept the picture frame he'd given her that first Christmas on display in her home, and she updated it every year with a recent picture of Derek and Mark. Derek realized that last year had been the first time they hadn't all been together in thirty-something years, and wondered if the frame still held the photo from that last Christmas, if the Derek and Mark in that photo were still frozen in time, happy and completely oblivious to the fact that in just a few months, Mark would sleep with Addison, and their decades-long friendship would be rocked to the foundation. Derek wondered if his mother would update the frame with a picture of him alone this year, or preserve the image of what he and Mark had once been.

"All right then—off to make the world one face prettier," Mark announced, unaware of Derek's thoughts. "Don't worry about Meredith—I'll make sure she doesn't push herself too hard," he added with a smirk. "Wouldn't want anything to happen to my godson."

Derek hadn't missed Mark's comment, but he let him leave without arguing. It wasn't worth it, and he didn't have the energy to deal with Mark when he was in fully-pompous mode. He hated that Meredith had to spend the rest of her day dealing with Mark; hopefully she was feeling more patient than Derek was—for Mark's sake.

* * *

After over four hours in surgery assisting Mark's facelift, Meredith was a lot of things. Tired, yes. Hungry—definitely. Patient—not exactly. After making sure that Mrs. Blackshear was settled into recovery, Meredith hurried to the cafeteria to grab a quick bite to eat before the next surgery Sloan had on the board. She owed Derek, big time. She wouldn't have eaten this morning, left to her own devices, but if he hadn't brought her breakfast, there was no way she'd still be standing. If she thought she could get away with stealing another quick nap in Derek's office, she'd do it in a heartbeat, but for now, she'd settle for food.

The downside to arriving at the cafeteria at one o'clock was that _most_ of the staff managed to hit for the noon lunch wave, and the food that remained after they'd picked over it wasn't always the best. On the other hand, it _did_ mean that the cafeteria was almost empty, so Meredith wouldn't have to deal with talking to people when she felt anything but chatty. She paid for a sandwich, a salad, and a bottle of water, and carried her tray to an isolated corner of the cafeteria. The hunger pains subsided as she made short work of her lunch, but she still ached from the mental and physical exhaustion of the last forty-eight hours.

She blamed it on Derek. She hadn't been able to stop thinking about him since their morning at the trailer—which was fine, to an extent, because she had promised that she'd think about where they stood with each other—but at the same time, she had a job, and she needed sleep, and it was hard to devote the necessary attention to those things when Derek occupied most of her thoughts. She was glad that aside from those few minutes in the waiting area last night, and then their twenty minutes that morning, that she _hadn't _seen Derek much in the past few days. When she was with him—when she was waking up to him and talking to him and he was being thoughtful and dreamy and _not_ pushing her for a stronger commitment—it was easy to forget how complicated life with him could be. It was vital that she take the time away from him to weigh her options, decide whether they could make a go of things _now_, what it would take to make it work. Wanting it to work wasn't a question—she'd never been more sure of anything in her life—rather, it was a matter of whether _now_ was the time most conducive to success. She'd asked him for a few days to figure things out, but even though she knew he'd give her more time if she asked, she was tired of thinking things to death. She knew—thought she knew—what she wanted to do; it was just a matter of finding the courage to admit her certainty and make another leap of faith. The first one had paid off, but Meredith wouldn't be Meredith if she didn't drag her feet to the edge of the next cliff.

She was ripped from her thoughts by the loud slam of a plastic tray against her table and a loud huff as Cristina sat down across from her. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"I just got out of surgery," Meredith replied.

Cristina popped the clear plastic lid off of her salad and harpooned her fork into it. "I've been trying to find you since I got here at five."

Meredith would have asked _why_ she'd been at the hospital at five in the morning, if she'd been talking to anyone else, but this was Cristina. It was more of a surprise that she'd gone home at all. "I was sleeping."

"Where, on the roof?" Cristina demanded. "I checked the on call rooms, the tunnels—"

"Derek's office," Meredith admitted, immediately bracing herself for the abrasive reaction sure to follow.

Cristina sat back and looked at her in dismay. "Oh god, don't tell me you're screwing him again."

"I'm not!" Meredith cried defensively.

"Then what are you doing spending the night in his office?" Cristina asked skeptically.

"He offered it to me. More privacy than an on-call room," Meredith shrugged. "So what did you need when you were scouring the halls for me?"

As quickly as that, Cristina's interest in Meredith's sleeping arrangements disappeared. "Hahn's shutting me down again," she groaned. "This is the third week in a row that I've been scheduled for cardio and she's changed the rotation. I'm on gynie, Meredith--freaking baby catchers! I just got out of a c-section while _Izzie_ was scrubbing in for Hahn's transplant. Seriously? Has no one told her that Izzie and transplant patients don't play well together? That was _my _transplant, Meredith…"

"Go to the Chief," Meredith suggested simply as she took the last bite of her sandwich.

"I'm not going to the Chief," Cristina scoffed. "I'm not in kindergarten. I don't tattle because someone's not sharing her crayons."

"She's not just hoarding her own crayons, Cristina. She's being a bully, and she won't let anyone share with you," Meredith replied. "Cristina, you've already declared your specialty. You declared it before anyone else in our year. She can't _not_ teach you, and she can't _not_ let you on her rotation. She has to at least let you work with some of the other cardio residents."

"The other residents aren't Erica Hahn, Meredith!" Cristina argued. "Hahn is…she's _Hahn_. She's one of the best, and I deserve to learn from the best—"

"Then go to the Chief!" Meredith repeated; she was tired, and her voice revealed more of her exasperation than she intended. "I don't know what else to tell you, Cristina. You're right, what she's doing isn't fair, but whining to me isn't going to change anything. If you're asking me for help, all I can tell you is to take it up with the Chief. It's not tattling if it's ensuring your professional future, Cristina. If you want to specialize in cardio, then be the cutthroat surgeon you are and do what it takes, and quit making up excuses for why you won't confront Hahn."

Cristina tilted her head and looked at Meredith pensively. "I am cutthroat," she agreed after a moment's consideration. "I'm hardcore. I kick playground bully ass."

"Yes, you do," Meredith laughed, happy to see a hint of the old Cristina finally reappearing.

"Do you want to go to Joe's tonight?" Cristina asked, apparently content with the potential resolution to her troubles with Hahn.

"I can't," Meredith shook her head. "I have—a thing." As well as it had gone with Meredith told Derek about therapy, she doubted Cristina would be as supportive. After all, Meredith herself had scorned therapy until she'd started seeing Dr. Hadden. Pysch was crap. Meredith might not think so anymore, but Cristina—Cristina would, and Meredith would prefer _not_ to deal with the mocking that would inevitably ensue.

"Please," Cristina scoffed. "You never do anything anymore. You sit at home and mope and act like an old woman. You didn't even come out with us Friday night. I was stuck drinking with everyone else _and_ your stalker sister while you sat at home picking up your needlepoint again."

Meredith let the comment about Lexie slide; she'd actually found her half-sister tolerable since Thanksgiving, though that might be partially due to the fact that Cristina had largely assigned Lexie to cases that kept her away from Meredith. "It was knitting," Meredith corrected, "and I wasn't at home. I was at Derek's."

It was the wrong thing to say, and Meredith regretted it instantly. "You spent the weekend with Shepherd?" Cristina cried.

Meredith shook her head. "Not the weekend—just Friday night."

"You are sleeping with him again—" Cristina laughed scornfully.

"I am not—we just talked," Meredith protested. Whatever patience she'd had left after spending two days in the hospital was quickly being used up in the effort _not_ to go off on her friend. Why was it so hard to believe that she could spend time with Derek _without_ sex playing a factor? There was more to them than sex, and Cristina of all people should know how much Derek meant to Meredith, since she'd spent as much time on her honeymoon criticizing Meredith for pining after Derek as she had denying that she herself missed Burke.

"Yeah," Cristina rolled her eyes in disbelief. "You mean he screwed you in front of all the furry woodland creatures until you scared them away with your screaming orgasms."

"Cristina!" Meredith snapped. "I am _not_ sleeping with him."

If she noticed the anger in Meredith's voice, Cristina ignored it. "Seriously, Meredith, I think this is even sadder than the needlepoint--"

"Derek and I are getting back together," Meredith blurted. That shut Cristina up, and drained the color from Meredith face. She hadn't meant to say it, but nothing else seemed to be getting through to Cristina. "At least, I think we are. Soon."

Cristina's face fell, and her tone turned from mocking to incredulous. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. We've been talking," Meredith replied. "We're starting to work through things."

Cristina sat silently for a long moment, her lips drawn into a thin line, before she shook her head at Meredith in pity. "I really thought you were more intelligent than that."

Meredith had had enough; that was the final straw. "Shut up," she growled. Cristina opened her mouth to say something, but Meredith cut her off. "No, shut up. I'm trying to be happy, Cristina. I know you hate that he makes me happy, but he does. I'm not saying that we're not royally screwed up, because we are, but we _want_ to be together, we want to make it work, and as my friend—my _best _friend—I'd think you'd be a little happier for me!"

"Oh, and if Burke showed up, you'd be pushing me back to him?" Cristina retorted, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.

"You and Burke are not me and Derek!" Meredith hissed. "We've been through things together that you—"

"Oh, you want to go there?" Cristina scoffed. "Remind me when Derek got _shot_ and you covered up for him and risked both your jobs?"

"Remind me when Burke pulled your dead body off the bottom of the ocean!" Meredith shot back. "Cristina, it's not about who's more screwed up—if you wanted to get back together with Burke, yes, I'd be worried, but if you told me that it was what you really wanted, that he made you happy and you loved him and you were trying to be adults and work through your problems, then I would support you, because I'm your person, and that's what I'm supposed to do!"

"I can't do that. I can't sit back and let him trample all over you because you're stupid enough to take him back—" Cristina argued.

"He makes me _happy_, Cristina," Meredith cried, her voice and hands shaking with anger. "I deserve to be happy. And it's different this time—we've both been working on things—"

"Whatever," Cristina rolled her eyes. "Just don't call me to haul your ass out of bed when he dumps you again."

"I won't—_he_ won't," Meredith pushed her chair back and stood up, throwing her trash onto her tray. "You know--at least I'm making an effort to move on with my life and not pretending that I don't miss Derek, which is a hell of a lot more than you can say."

She stormed off, pausing only to drop off her trash, and didn't look back as she left the cafeteria. She was still fuming when she found herself on the post-op recovery wing, but she managed to calm herself down slightly before she retrieved the chart from the nurse's station and checked in on their facelift patient from that morning. The woman had woken up from the anesthesia, and aside from some mild discomfort, didn't appear to be suffering any ill effects from the surgery. Meredith forced a smile when she left the patient's room, and when she stopped at the nurse's station to make a few notes on the chart, she took a deep breath and noticed that her hands were no longer shaking. That was good; she couldn't go into surgery with trembling hands, which was more than she could say for the man Cristina seemed so determined to keep on a pedestal. How _dare_ she criticize Meredith for not only _admitting_ that Derek wasn't so McDreamy, but embracing him anyway, flaws and all, and trying to work through their issues like an adult? At least she was _speaking_ to Derek, _talking_ about their problems—sort of—instead of agreeing to marry him days after ending a silence strike. At least Meredith had taken a step and gone to therapy, instead of continuing to bottle everything up and pretending that she was perfectly okay with being left at the altar. At least--

"Grey!" Mark Sloan's booming voice carried down the hall, alerting her to his approach.

"Dr. Sloan," she acknowledged without looking up at him.

"Checking on my patient?" he said, noticing the chart in her hands. "Good. Excellent work this morning, too, Grey."

"Thank you," Meredith replied curtly. She wasn't necessarily being nice—Mark had been tolerable today, and she'd had to deal with him in much less pleasant demeanors—but right now, she'd almost prefer the sulking, sullen Mark Sloan to the overly friendly, chatty version standing next to her. Cheery and bright were not attributes she could handle at the moment.

"You're grouchy," Mark observed with an amused chuckle. "Derek must be having tons of fun with that. The mood swings."

Meredith looked up sharply. "What?"

"Did he tell you my vote?" Mark continued, oblivious to the warning note in her voice. "Like I told Derek, I definitely think my godson should be called Mark, but I've been thinking, and I've decided that 'Sloan' would make a pretty good middle name, too. Mark Sloan Shepherd--sounds good, doesn't it?"

"What are you talking about?" Meredith asked, curling her fingers into a fist around her pen. Godson?

"Oh right, you're not telling anyone yet," Mark winked. "Relax, I'm not going to tell anyone your secret. I'll pretend to be as surprised as everyone else when you hit your second trimester—"

Meredith's jaw dropped in shock, and the anger she'd just started to suppress boiled up with an even greater intensity. "My _what_?"

"Come on," Mark grinned. "Quit being coy, Grey. Derek and I have been talking about the baby for weeks. I _know_; you don't have to hide it from me."

"Derek things I'm pregnant?" she bristled.

Mark's grin faded. "You're not?"

Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "No. I'm not." She turned on her heel and stalked away in the direction of Derek's office. Baby. Godson. _Mood swings_. Of all the stupid, ridiculous things she'd ever heard about herself in the halls of the hospital, this one topped them all. If Derek valued his life at all, he wouldn't be in his office, because as soon as she found him, she was going to kill him.

* * *

Derek had had a largely uneventful day. He'd caught about half an hour of Meredith's surgery from the gallery before he had to scrub in for a craniotomy of his own, and then he'd had lunch in his office in preparation for his phone consult with Mercy West. After speaking with the other hospital's Head of Neurosurgery, they'd arranged to have the patient in question transferred that evening, and after they'd hung up, Derek had set about completing the paperwork for the transfer. He had a surgery scheduled for late afternoon, but the remainder of his day, barring any traumas coming into the ER, was blocked off for office hours. It wasn't an exciting day, but Derek was determined to make it a productive one, and intended to work his way through several of the piles of paperwork on his desk.

He hadn't planned for the door to his office to be flung open with such a force that it hit the wall as Meredith stormed into his office. She was shaking violently, her eyes dark with fury, and Derek felt his stomach turn. "Meredith!" he cried, frowning in concern. "Meredith, what is it?"

"I need you to tell me why I was just told that Mark Sloan Shepherd would be an excellent name for my baby," she demanded.

Derek's face blanched; this was _not_ good. If Derek made it out of this, Mark Sloan was a dead man. "Shit," he muttered. "Meredith—"

"Don't 'Meredith' me," she snapped. "I need you to tell me why the hell Mark Sloan is giving me suggestions for baby names."

"Meredith," he tried again as he rose from his desk to calm her.

She didn't let him finish, and beat one of her tiny, not-so-ineffectual fists against his chest. "You think I'm _pregnant_?"

"No, I don't," he assured her as he caught her wrist just before a second blow landed on his arm. "I _know_ you're not—"

"But you're _telling_ people that I'm pregnant?" she cried.

"No!" he replied firmly, grabbing her arms to steady her and to keep her from hitting him again; based on the look in her eyes, that was still a definite possibility. "It's not me, Meredith. It's Mark."

"Why does Mark think I'm pregnant?" she said desperately.

Derek sighed deeply. "Before I knew it was therapy—when I was worried about all your appointments—Mark decided that the only explanation was that you were seeing an OB," he explained. "I told him you weren't, but he wouldn't listen—"

"How long?" Meredith asked.

"What?" he replied, shaking his head in confusion.

"How long?" she repeated. "How long have I been oblivious to the rumor that I'm pregnant going around the hospital?"

"It's not going around," he promised. "Mark's actually kept it to himself. He thinks we're waiting to tell people until you're a little further along."

"Make him stop," she said petulantly. Derek lifted one hand and smoothed her hair back from her face. He wasn't in danger of being slapped anymore, but her lower lip was quivering and she looked like tears of frustration might start falling at any second.

"I'll try," he said softly. "You know, he'd be discreet about therapy. He doesn't want anyone to know that he sees a therapist—if he knew you were, he'd drop the pregnant thing. He'd keep your secret."

"No," she insisted. "I don't want anyone to know."

"Okay, then. I'll do my best to get him to stop," Derek said placatingly. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she whispered. She took a deep breath and looked up into his eyes, holding his gaze for just a second before she broke away and pushed past him. She collapsed on the couch and groaned softly as she leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees as she covered her face with her hands.

Derek followed her and took a seat by her side; there was something else going on, something on top of Mark's stupidity. "What's really wrong?" he asked gently. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," she mumbled into her palms.

"'No' as in you don't trust me to tell me, or 'no' as in it's not that big of a deal?" he persisted.

"No as in…I'm still mad and don't want to talk to _anyone_ about it," she replied.

"Mad at me?" he asked hesitantly. She shook her head. "Mark?" he guessed.

"Well…yes, but no," Meredith answered.

"Okay," he murmured. He wouldn't press any further; she wasn't going to give him anything, and he didn't want to push her away. If she wanted to talk, she would, but for now…he'd just be here for her. She wouldn't still be in his office if she didn't want to be around him, he figured, so it would only be a matter of time before she opened up. He cautiously curled an arm around her shoulders, and when she reciprocated by leaning into him, he combed his fingers through her hair soothingly and waited.

After several minutes, she finally lifted her head and sighed heavily. "It's Cristina. I had a fight with Cristina."

"Cristina?" he raised an eyebrow in surprise. That was a new one; he couldn't remember offhand _any_ time Meredith had fought with Cristina. "What happened?"

"She's…Cristina," Meredith replied vaguely.

He frowned; that didn't provide much for him to work with. He didn't know what else to say beyond, "She's your best friend, Meredith. I'm sure you'll work through it."

"I don't think you'd say that if you knew…" she muttered bitterly.

"It's about me?" he let his hand fall from her hair. "You fought with Cristina over me?" _That_ was an even bigger shock than the fight itself; Meredith, who had consistently chosen loyalty to her friends over him, made him feel insignificant, inferior to Cristina and the others—she'd risked her friendship with Cristina for _him_? She'd put him first…

"Yeah," Meredith nodded. "She doesn't get it."

"Get what?" he asked.

"Why I'd even think about giving us another chance," she replied.

"She's being protective of you," Derek said. As much as he sometimes resented Cristina's closeness with Meredith, he would never deny that Cristina defended Meredith fiercely. It didn't surprise him that Cristina was critical of the undeserved opportunities that Meredith seemed to be extending him.

"How would you know?" Meredith argued. "You weren't there."

"No, I wasn't" he agreed. "But—what was it you said once? She was there for you when I wasn't. She's trying to look out for you, Meredith."

"She thinks you're going to hurt me again," Meredith told him.

A lump formed in his throat; he forced it down. Hurting her again was the last thing he _ever_ wanted to do. "Do you think that?" he asked hesitantly; he wasn't sure he wanted to know her answer.

"I don't know what I think," she admitted.

It wasn't what he'd hoped to hear. "You'll be okay," he assured her. "_We'll_ be okay. You and Cristina will be fine."

"You don't like Cristina," she said skeptically.

"I like Cristina well enough," he disagreed. "I didn't like coming home to find her in my place in your bed. I didn't like her having the place in your life that I thought I should have. But she's your friend. You like her."

"Most of the time," Meredith said begrudgingly.

He sighed and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone fondly as he slid his fingers into her hair again. "Just talk to her, Meredith," he advised. "You'll work things out. And if you want to talk more about it—I'm here."

"I have a therapist," she reminded him.

"I know. But I'll listen to you, too," he paused and grinned playfully. "You won't even have to pay me for it."

"Thanks," she smiled softly and glanced down at her watch. "I um—I have Mark's rhinoplasty—" she said reluctantly.

"Go," he nodded. "We can talk later." He stood up first and offered his hand to help her up. "Try not to kill Mark when you see him—I'd like that privilege myself."

She laughed lightly, and then her expression turned serious. "You know that I'm not, right?" she bit down on her lip nervously. "Pregnant. I'm not pregnant."

"I know," he assured her again.

"Do I _look_ pregnant?" she asked, looking down as she placed a hand on her stomach as if to evaluate its flatness.

He tried not to laugh at her; she'd never struck him as the type to stress over what changes a pregnancy might make to her body. If she wasn't worried about the grilled cheese and strawberry ice cream, he'd figured a pregnancy wouldn't faze her too badly. "No, you don't look pregnant."

Her eyes met his again and she took a deep breath. "I was afraid," she admitted. "When Mark said that you thought I was pregnant—I was afraid that all of this—this weekend, and the last few weeks—I was afraid that you were only doing it because you thought I was pregnant. I thought maybe it wasn't about me after all, that you just wanted the baby—"

"No," he shook his head firmly; he hated that she'd doubted for a second, that _still_ she couldn't let herself fully believe that he loved her, wanted _her_. "Meredith, no. I never thought you were pregnant. It's always been about you."

Some of the worry left her face, and she managed a tiny smile. "I would have told you. If I were."

"I know, Meredith," Derek nodded. "You have secrets, but that's not one you'd keep from me."

"Right," she sighed. "Okay. I should go—scrub in."

"Okay," he agreed. "Good luck at therapy tonight. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," she started to go, but stopped after the first step and turned back to him. "Derek—if we were pregnant? There's no way I'd name our child after Mark Sloan."

"Me either," he promised. She smiled once more, and he watched her leave, shutting the door only after she'd disappeared from sight.

If he'd had any doubt about the good therapy was doing her, it was gone now. Meredith would have never done this two months ago. When Meredith was stressed, she shut down. She bottled things up. Only very rarely did she actually lash out and confront him, and that was only when things had escalated to a point that she _couldn't_ fit anything else in the bottle. He knew how tired she must be, and that made everything seem much more intense than it probably actually was, but still—she'd come to him with it. She'd found out about Mark's moronic pregnancy theory, and she'd come to him—very angry, no denying that—but asking for explanations, and then she'd admitted the real problem. _Talked_ to him about the real problem.

Cristina. Not only had she told Cristina that she was considering giving him another chance—that alone was a good sign—but when Cristina had criticized the idea, Meredith had stood up for herself, for Derek, for _them_. She'd put her relationship with Derek—undefined as it was—above her friends, and that? That meant the world to him. It was all he'd needed—something to hold onto, to make him believe that she _did_ value his presence in her life. It was something he'd begged her for before, but had never been given. But now—now he had proof. She really was thinking, really was trying—she _did_ want to make them work. Fundamentally, she was the same woman he'd fallen in love with, but Derek couldn't deny the changes he was seeing in her. She was growing. She was trying, and against all odds, in spite of everything he'd put her through, Derek was convinced that if she'd just give in, give them one more chance, that this time, they would both in it for good.

* * *

Meredith refused to speak to Mark anymore than absolutely necessary during the rhinoplasty. Thankfully, he didn't attempt to talk to her much, either. She suspected that he was simply too embarrassed to say anything to her, and she wasn't complaining. She didn't care if he was Derek's oldest friend or her sort-of friend; right now, he was just the ass who'd thought she was pregnant, and she was still livid at him.

Mark disappeared after the surgery was complete and he and Meredith had informed her family of the successful outcome. Meredith didn't care where he'd gone; her day was finally over, and not a minute too soon. She stopped by Derek's office, hoping to apologize for her meltdown earlier, but found it empty; a quick trip to the OR board confirmed that he was in surgery. Reluctantly, she gave up on the idea of seeing him and started for the resident's lounge to change and get ready to leave. She didn't think she'd ever been so glad to leave the hospital; it had been an incredibly long day, and she was ready to get off the emotional roller coaster with a quick visit to Dr. Hadden, and then go home and pass out for a good seven or eight hours. If she didn't know that it was impossible, she'd almost think that there could be some validity to Mark's pregnancy theory, what with the emotional extremes she'd experienced in the past twelve hours. The day had started off so well with Derek, but it had quickly disintegrated after that, especially after her argument with Cristina.

She thought now, after some introspection while she should have been watching Mark reshape the tip of someone's nose, that Derek was probably right. She was tired, overly sensitive—what Cristina had said was harsh, but also very much Cristina. Meredith would have still been angry, but maybe not quite so combative, if the conversation hadn't happened when it did. She didn't want to stay angry at Cristina—like Derek had said, she was just trying to protect Meredith. Cristina didn't know—and Meredith couldn't expect her to know—how much they'd both changed since their breakup, how hard they were both trying. Derek wasn't her favorite person, but Cristina would come around, and Meredith was pretty sure that she'd already forgiven Cristina. She was her person, after all. Her family.

She was startled when she pushed open the door to the resident's lounge and found Cristina sitting inside, surrounded by a sea of medical texts. Cardio, by the look of things.

"Hey," Meredith breathed. Cristina looked up at her, and then back down without a word. Meredith rolled her eyes, "Okay, don't talk."

Cristina lifted her head again, feigning surprise, as though she'd just seen Meredith standing there. "I'm sorry, did you suddenly start listening to me again?" she said sarcastically. "Last I checked, you didn't care what I said."

"Cristina—I'm sorry I snapped at you," Meredith sighed. "I'm sorry that you don't like the idea of me and Derek again, and I know you're just trying to protect me. But I need you to be my friend and trust me when I tell you that I've been thinking about this and it _is_ different—" she stopped when she heard Cristina mutter something under her breath. "What was that?" Meredith challenged.

"I said how can I trust that things are different when you haven't even talked to me about it?" Cristina said, raising her voice a little louder than necessary. "I don't know who you are anymore, Meredith. You don't talk to me, you never have time for anyone—we all thought you were busy, but it turns out you're just too busy for anyone but McDreamy—

"Are you jealous?" Meredith cried, incredulous. "Seriously? Cristina—I told you about Friday night, but that's the only time I've seen Derek outside of the hospital. I know I haven't been around a lot lately, but how can you say that I don't make time for you? I spent all day with you last Saturday!" She hesitated and ran a hand backward through her hair in frustration. "You're still my person, Cristina. You're my best friend, but you can't fix everything, and you _shouldn't_ be the only person I talk to. Just because I'm talking to Derek or anyone else—it doesn't mean you're less important to me."

"Okay, this is nauseating," Cristina groaned. "We don't do this whole hugging-talking-feelings thing."

Meredith smiled hopefully. "So we're okay?"

"Yeah," Cristina gave in. She was silent for a moment before lifting one eyebrow questioningly. "So…you and Shepherd? Again?"

"Maybe," Meredith nodded. "We've been talking about it—sort of."

"Sort of?" Cristina repeated.

"Yeah," Meredith said as she crossed the room to her cubby and took down her street clothes.

"You really want to go through this with him again?" Cristina asked.

"It's different this time," Meredith assured her. "He's…we're both trying. We have tons of stuff to work through, but—I want it to work with him."

"Okay," Cristina shrugged. She returned her attention to her books while Meredith changed. As Meredith gathered her purse to go, Cristina added, "I wouldn't do it. Give Burke another chance."

"We're different people, Cristina," Meredith said softly. "Derek's not Burke."

"Yeah," Cristina said flatly. "Sure you don't want to come to Joe's tonight? It's a victory celebration. Hahn got called to the principal's office today."

"I can't—I have a thing," Meredith reminded her. "I'm glad you talked to the Chief though."

Cristina rolled her eyes. "What kind of thing?"

"Just—a thing," Meredith said vaguely, worrying the strap of her purse through her hands.

"Does Shepherd know about this thing?" Cristina demanded.

Meredith's guilty expression gave her the only answer she needed. "He does. But you won't tell me."

"Cristina—you're still my person, but this just—it isn't something you need to know," Meredith sighed.

"Fine," Cristina muttered.

Meredith frowned; she had to do something about this jealousy thing. "Can we do drinks tomorrow night?" she suggested. "I'm off at eight."

"Can you tear yourself away from McDreamy for that long?" Cristina retorted. Meredith glared at her. "Yeah, fine," Cristina conceded quickly. "Drinks at Joe's tomorrow."

"Okay," Meredith smiled. "I'm glad we're okay."

"Yeah, yeah," Cristina waved her hand dismissively. "I'm done with this—whatever. Just go, do your special secret thing. I've got to study so I can scrub in with Hahn tomorrow."

Meredith shook her head in amusement; some things were never going to change. She took her keys from her purse and slipped quietly out of the lounge. It was already dark outside as she left the hospital and crossed the parking lot to her car; the winter chill nipped at her cheeks and nose, and she wished she were home in her warm bed. Soon, she told herself. One more stop, and then home and bed.

The waiting area at Dr. Hadden's office building was warm and comfortable, and Meredith nearly dozed off in her chair before the receptionist called her back to the therapist's office. The plush couch there was even more inviting, and the space heater plugged into the wall, aimed at Meredith's feet, didn't help her to stay awake. She felt her eyelids growing heavy and her muscles giving in, refusing to exert any more energy than they already had. She had just started to nod off when the door creaked open and Dr. Hadden's voice interrupted Meredith's attempted catnap.

"Meredith, I'm glad to see you," she said pleasantly. "I have to say, I was worried about you, the way you left Friday night. I hoped you might use the number I gave you—"

"I was okay," Meredith assured her. "I worked Saturday and Sunday nights, but Friday was—Friday…I went to Derek's."

Dr. Hadden nodded knowingly as she took her usual seat across from Meredith. "I thought that might be where you were going."

"I took a leap of faith," Meredith said. There was no sense in beating around this bush during this session; her bed was waiting, but more than that—she'd been planning what she wanted to talk about for a few days now, and she didn't want to waste a second.

"And?" Dr. Hadden replied, reaching for a pen off her desk as she flipped open her notebook.

"We talked," Meredith told her. "Really talked. It was…really good. I spent the night. I didn't mean to, but I did, and we talked more the next morning. He made me breakfast."

"That's nice," Dr. Hadden smiled encouragingly. "What did you talk about?"

"The day I drowned. What we both went through, how we felt about it," Meredith answered. "That was Friday night."

"And Saturday?" Dr. Hadden asked.

"The house Derek wanted to build us. He showed me where he wanted to build it," Meredith paused for a beat before diving into the real issue. "We talked about where we stand with each other—maybe getting back together."

"Really?" Dr. Hadden said in surprise. "Did you decide anything?"

"I told him I'd think about it," Meredith said. "That morning—everything was so perfect, and I just thought…I should wait. I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to make a hasty decision about something like that. I wanted to make sure that I was ready to try again when I'd had a few days to think and everything wasn't so recent."

"That's a very intelligent, mature thought process, Meredith," Dr. Hadden praised.

"I asked him to give me a few days," Meredith continued. "He said he would. He hasn't hinted or begged or even asked to know what I'm thinking—he's giving me the time to think."

"That's wonderful," Dr. Hadden nodded. "Would you like to pick up the discussion we started Friday night?"

"No," Meredith shook her head. "I know, it's something I need to talk about, and talking with Derek doesn't mean that I'm fixed and healed and don't need to tell you about it," she added quickly. "But just—not now, not yet. In a few minutes, but first—"

"You're more concerned about your relationship with Derek," Dr. Hadden finished. "You know I won't tell you what to do."

"I know," Meredith replied. "But I need someone to talk to about this, and that's kind of your job."

"Okay then," Dr. Hadden yielded. "So you told Derek you'd think about what to do. Have you been thinking?"

"I can't _stop_ thinking about it," Meredith's stomach fluttered with nerves.

"Have you come to any conclusions?" Dr. Hadden asked.

Meredith felt a grin tug at the corners of her mouth, and she took a deep breath. "I think so. Yes."


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Hi. It's um...been a while, and I used to be really good about regular updates. Here's the short version of the last month of my life, for those of you who don't follow on livejournal: there was a cat, a broken laptop, a damaged flashdrive containing half of what I'd written for this chapter plus every paper I wrote in college shipped off to Colorado to be salvaged, 852 dollars, and four boy cousins visiting for a month. This chapter probably contains many more typos than I usually miss, sorry. The whole thing is very dialogue heavy, which I'm not crazy about, so it will probably be severely revised in months to come, but after a month (and 852 dollars) to write this chapter...I'm ready to be done with it. Thanks for being patient and still reading--I appreciate it very much.**

Derek did not want to be at work. With his trip home for the holidays mere days away, he was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of logistical details to be arranged before he could leave. With the exception of whatever Mark had bought for Derek's mother, Derek had shipped all of his gifts back east a week before, and Maggie had called to confirm their delivery. There were, however, still suitcases to pack, bills to pay before he left town, not to mention that he continually thought of things he needed to tell Weller and Krychek so that the department wouldn't fall apart in his absence. Kathleen and Julie were spear-heading the campaign to keep his arrival in New York a secret from their mother, but he was still bombarded with calls from them multiple times a day checking and double-checking the arrangements. Derek wanted to go home—he wanted to see his family—but at the same time, he was ready to be done with the entire ordeal, and back to Meredith. Everything between them was so fragile, so delicate, at the moment—it hardly seemed like an ideal time to leave her for a week.

He arrived late at the hospital Tuesday morning, having stopped by the post office to overnight Mark's gift to Maggie, and as a result, he'd been behind all morning. He hadn't seen Meredith yet, but he was seriously considering poaching her from ortho for a cordotomy he had scheduled in the afternoon. It didn't matter that he was scheduled to work with her later in the week; if he had to go a week without her, he wanted to make sure he banked as much time with her now as possible. Derek reached for the phone to have her paged, but before he could even lift the handset from the cradle, it rang and the caller ID showed the number for his sister's practice in Connecticut.

"Yes, Nancy?" he asked as he wedged the phone against his ear with his shoulder.

"Have you packed yet?" Nancy barely let him finish his greeting, immediately jumping into full overbearing-sister mode as soon as she heard his voice.

"Halfway," Derek replied. "Why?"

"Mom just called me; she wants the boys in black and the girls in red or green for this year's Christmas pictures—"

"That's predictable," Derek interrupted with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, well, it's Mom," Nancy said. "I just wanted to let you know so that you'd bring the right clothes and not stick out like a sore thumb. So tell me again when your flight is getting in?"

He didn't have an opportunity to answer; a knock at the door gave him a split-second's warning before Meredith pushed into the room. He grinned in greeting as she crossed the room to his desk deliberately, her expression a frown of determination and intent.

Derek covered the mouthpiece of the phone and met her eyes with a worried frown of his own. "Hey—everything okay?" he asked quietly. Nancy squawked something unintelligible in his ear and he turned his attention back to her, quickly placating, "No, not you, Nancy—"

Meredith's eyes went wide. "Nancy?" she hissed.

"Yeah," he mouthed. "Nancy—can I call you back in a few minutes?"

Meredith had turned from him and picked up a stack of medical journals, dropping them in his lap as she rifled through the papers on his desk. "Where is it?" she muttered.

"Nancy, I've got to go," Derek hung up the phone and set the journals aside. He twisted in his chair and tilted his head to consider her as she destroyed the fragile organization of his desk. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for—there it is!" she said triumphantly, clutching a piece of paper in her hands as she hopped onto his desk. Her legs dangled over the edge, kicking back and forth like a small child's, as her eyes scanned the black text. "You're off at seven tomorrow," she announced, her eyes sparkling happily.

"Yes—" he replied cautiously, unsure of where this line of conversation was going.

Meredith grinned and took a deep breath, crumpling the paper as she clenched her shaky hands into fists. "Ask me to have dinner with you tomorrow night," she demanded.

Derek's heart stopped momentarily. "What?" the word was barely more than one disbelieving breath.

"Ask me to have dinner with you tomorrow night," she repeated, a little more firmly this time.

Derek lacked the confidence to believe in his ears. "Don't tease, Meredith," he shook his head. "It's not nice."

"Derek—" she groaned in exasperation. A broad smile split her face as words tumbled nervously from her lips. "You've been trying to ask me out for weeks and I keep turning you down. I'm sitting here in front of you, on your desk, telling you to ask me for dinner tomorrow night, because I _have_ said no, but _if _you ask me now before I have a chance to talk myself out of it, I _might_ give you a different answer, but you have to—"

She didn't get to finish her sentence, because Derek had stood up and cupped her face in one hand and pressed the index finger of the other over her lips. "Meredith," he whispered, shaking his head in amazement and praying that his heart wasn't about to leap out of his throat. "Meredith…will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?"

Her eyes met his and she paused for one brief, excruciating moment before she smiled coyly and whispered back one single, perfect word. "Yes."

"Yes?" he needed to hear her say it again, just to be sure. To make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"Yes," she nodded.

Derek took a deep breath. He had to be sure…before he let his hopes get too high, he had to know. "Is this…a date, a…what is this?"

"It's a date," Meredith replied. "It's not a guarantee, but it is a date."

"No guarantees?" he raised a questioning eyebrow.

"We need to talk," she explained. "It's a date, to talk and decide things and…make rules."

"We didn't get to make rules before," he remembered with a soft smile.

"I want rules," Meredith said, slowly sliding her hands along his arms until she circled her slender fingers around his wrists and pulled his hands away from her face. She laced her fingers through his and let their entwined hands fall to their sides. "I want definite rules before we go into this again."

"So we'll make rules," Derek agreed. "On our date." He'd probably agree to just about anything, if it meant a date with her. But rules—those were a good thing. Addison had kept them from making rules the first time. He'd broken the first, unspoken rule: don't hide the estranged wife from Meredith. They'd have real rules this time—lay out a plan for those hundred steps Meredith thought they had between them and the house. If that was the end game, Derek didn't mind making rules at all.

"Yes," Meredith smiled, "on our date."

Derek ran his thumb over the back of her hand gently. He wondered how idiotic the constant grinning made him look, but he didn't care. This was happening. Finally. It was really happening. Meredith was taking him back…with rules, but that didn't matter. He was getting another chance--one that he was determined he wouldn't screw up. "Where do you want me to take you on this date?" he murmured.

"Somewhere with food," Meredith suggested wryly. "Maybe a bottle of wine."

"Do you want to come over to the trailer?" Derek offered. "I'll make dinner for you."

She shook her head immediately. "I want you to take me out. Neutral territory for negotiations."

"Okay," Derek agreed. "Any preferences? We haven't had a date in…a really long time. I want to make sure I do this right."

"I'm sure whatever you decide will be great," she assured him, shrugging her shoulders with a playful smirk as she added, "Surprise me."

"You and your surprises," he grinned. He took a deep breath and let go of her hands so that he could run his fingers through her hair again. For the first time in months, he felt like he could touch her a little more freely, a little more openly—that the soft caresses of her hair were no longer forbidden, no longer stolen—but no less alluring for it. He wanted her—he wanted _them_, now. He wanted these rules or whatever on the table and established and out of the way so that he could feel totally, completely secure about this relationship. He wanted them back together, officially, immediately. "Why wait?" he asked earnestly. "Why don't we go to dinner tonight?"

"I can't tonight," Meredith sighed. "I promised Cristina we'd have drinks tonight."

He frowned. The Derek of six months—even six weeks--earlier would have fumed with jealousy that Cristina Yang was yet again coming between him and Meredith, but he tried to quell that impulse. Whether he liked it or not, Cristina was Meredith's best friend, and they _had_ fought just the day before. Meredith needed the time with her friend, and he consoled himself with the knowledge that she'd also made a big step and set aside time just for him for the next night. She was making an effort at balancing; he could try to share, too. "I told you you'd make up quickly," he said. "Everything's good with you two?"

"I think so," Meredith nodded. "I made plans with her before I knew you were going to ask me out. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he assured her. "Tomorrow is good. It gives me time to plan."

Panic flashed across her face. "Don't—don't go to too much trouble, Derek. It's a date. One date, and hopefully more after that, but for now—it's just one date. Not—not a proposal or anything."

"Shh," he soothed her. "Calm down. I know it's just a date, but it's our first date in half a year, Meredith. I want it to be good."

"It will be," Meredith insisted. "You don't have to do these big things for me, Derek. The little stuff is enough."

"You deserve the grand gestures," he replied. "You deserve to have the fairytale, Meredith—or whatever semblance of one I can give you."

"I don't need the fairytale right now," she said. "Just dinner. And wine. And talking."

"Mm," the syllable resonated in Derek's throat, somewhere between a purr and a growl. "I think we can manage that. I'm all for the talking. More talking, I say."

"More talking," Meredith agreed with a nod. "We haven't always been good at that part. I want us to be."

"Me too," Derek replied. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers, reveling in the feel of her skin against his and the soft whisper of her breath against his cheek. "You get that this is killing me, right?" he murmured.

"Making you wait until tomorrow?" Meredith guessed. "I'm sorry. I just…I wanted to have it set before you made other plans for tomorrow—"

He laughed at that and shook his head incredulously. "Other plans? Meredith, who else would I want to take out?"

"Well, it's not like I haven't had competition," Meredith reminded him pointedly.

He frowned. "Mere—you're it. I want—I need you to believe that."

"I'm trying," Meredith promised. "I want to believe you, too. So I'm taking a chance and letting you take me out."

Derek smiled softly. "So I get off at seven. When do you finish your shift?"

"Six," Meredith replied. "If we're going to do this dating thing, I want to go home. Change. Maybe shower and get the hospital smell off of me."

"So…I'll pick you up at seven-thirty? Eight?" Derek suggested.

"Seven thirty is good," Meredith agreed.

"Okay then," Derek nodded. "It's a date."

"A date," Meredith repeated thoughtfully as a pleased smile played across her lips.

* * *

Despite having over twenty-four hours notice—closer to forty-eight, really, since she'd known that she was going to ask him to ask her out before he'd known it—Meredith was a flustered, nervous wreck as she prepared for her date with Derek. She'd thought she was ready. Prepared. She knew what she wanted to say—the rules she wanted to make, the conditions to apply to this second chance. Third chance. Whatever attempt they were on now. She'd rehearsed it all a thousand times in her head, convinced herself she was completely confident—but as soon as she'd arrived home to get ready, she'd fallen apart.

Derek thought she was beautiful. She knew that, even when she doubted other aspects of their relationship. Derek had seen her at her worst—throwing up, post-op after her appendectomy, exhausted after a long shift, dead and drowned—but still, he'd left no question how much he desired her. She wasn't worried about looking good enough to gain his interest—because sex with Derek was definitely _not_ in the cards for tonight—but she wanted to look nice. It was a date. With Derek. Her first date with Derek since they'd broken up, their first date in more than seven months. Tonight was important. It was more than important. It was crucial…vital. It had to be perfect, and perfect did not involve old jeans and college t-shirts.

"_We're still on for tonight?" Derek had caught her in the hallway outside the scrub room a few hours before she'd left the hospital, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her aside._

"_Of course," she'd nodded, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat in the same instant that her stomach had filled with butterflies. "Seven-thirty, right?"_

"_Yeah, as long as I'm out of this surgery in time," he'd assured her. "I should be out of here by six. Six-thirty at the latest. I'd like to wait here a little while to monitor Mrs. Fowler in recovery, but yeah…seven thirty. I'll call if I'm going to be late, I promise—"_

"_Are you going to tell me where we're going?" Meredith had asked._

"_You wanted surprises," Derek had grinned. "How is it a surprise if I tell you?"_

"_I have to know something," she'd persisted. "How am I supposed to know how to dress if you don't tell me where we're going?"_

"_Whatever you wear will be fine," he shrugged. "I mean…I might leave the holey Dartmouth shirt at home, as good as you look in it." He'd laughed as a slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Seriously, Mere. I'm wearing the clothes I wore to the hospital this morning. I might throw on a jacket, but that's it."_

"_But I didn't see you when you got here this morning," she'd argued. "I don't _know _what you were wearing."_

"_Meredith…casual, okay?" he'd sighed. "I don't…I don't want any more pressure on tonight than there already is. You can dress up if you want to—I won't complain—but you don't have to."_

Even with Derek's insistence that her wardrobe choices wouldn't matter, Meredith agonized over it—and she hated him a little for that, because Meredith was not normally _that_ girl. She thought about dressing up—even took out the black cocktail dress she'd worn the night she met Derek with some sort of sentimental recreation of that night at Joe's in mind—before ultimately deciding against it. From what she could piece together from tequila-hazed flashes of memory, Derek had made swift work of getting her _out_ of that dress, and she didn't want to give him any ideas tonight. Sex was nowhere on the agenda. The dress was out of the question, and lay crumpled by her feet on the floor as she stood at the foot of her bed, staring at the choices laid out before her. A sweater. Definitely a sweater. But jeans? Or black pants? And _which_ sweater?

"The red one," Izzie submitted her vote from the doorway to Meredith's room. Meredith glanced over her shoulder to see Izzie, leaning against the doorframe, a spoon in one hand and a pint of ice cream in the other. "You should wear the red one. Who are you going out with?"

Meredith hadn't heard Izzie come home, but judging by the pajamas, the ice cream, and the rare appearance of Izzie's glasses, her roommate was settling in for a long night of moping and self-imposed misery. Meredith thought that she should probably ask what was wrong, but at the moment, her date with Derek was weighing much more heavily on her mind that whatever problems Izzie had worked up for herself. "Just…a guy," Meredith replied evasively. She picked up the red sweater and examined it thoughtfully before deciding against it. She wasn't in a red mood.

Izzie took Meredith's response as an invitation to come further into the room. "What guy?" She settled in the armchair by the window and popped another spoonful of mint chocolate chip into her mouth. Her brown eyes widened and she gave a muffled squeal; for a moment, Meredith thought that she was reacting to the cold, but Izzie grinned broadly after she swallowed and gushed, "Oh, oh…is it _the _guy? The one who's been sending you flowers?"

Meredith looked away quickly; suddenly, her green sweater seemed very interesting. She felt Izzie's intense stare boring into her, and finally gave in with a deep sigh and a heave of her shoulders. "Fine. Yes. It's him."

Meredith winced as Izzie squealed with excitement. "It is? It's your secret admirer? Why didn't you tell me? This is great, Mere, really great—you need to get back in the dating game."

Meredith ignored that comment, and didn't offer the information that her secret admirer was not so secret, and not a new one, either. It seemed unlikely that Izzie _wouldn't_ be home when Derek arrived, so as much as Meredith would have preferred holding off on the news of Meredith-and-Derek, Take Three, it appeared that the cat would be let out of the bag tonight. Izzie would find out soon enough that Meredith was trying again with Derek, but Meredith wasn't about to tell Izzie now, not when there was still an hour for Izzie to wonder out loud whether Meredith was making a smart decision.

"So where did you meet this guy?" Izzie asked. "Is he nice?"

"He's just a guy from a bar," Meredith shrugged. She was glad that she'd turned away from Izzie, so that her friend couldn't see the smile that crept involuntarily onto her lips. _I'm just a girl in a bar. I'm just a guy in a bar._ "And yes, he's nice." Most of the time, she added to herself.

"I need a good guy," Izzie announced. "I mean seriously, Meredith—there have to be good guys out there, right? Because the way things have been going lately I'm really starting to doubt—"

"Is this a George thing?" Meredith replied, looking pointedly at the half-eaten pint of ice cream balanced on Izzie's lap, the green carton in stark contrast to Izzie's bubblegum pink pajama pants.

Izzie gulped down another spoonful of ice cream. "It's not going to work. I love George, you know? Georgie is great—he's sweet and kind, and—it's just all wrong. The timing or something, I think. Maybe the Callie thing. I don't know, it's just—it should work, but it doesn't."

Meredith was relieved; by choice, she'd stayed mostly in the dark over the last few weeks while Izzie and George pursued…whatever they'd been doing. She was the last person to be judgmental about relationships, but considering her own history, she was sensitive when it came to adulterous affairs. George and Callie hadn't had kids, and Meredith had been surprised when something hadn't happened with George and Izzie _sooner_, but still…the less she knew about the whole ordeal, the better. At any rate, it seemed to be finished now, and things could hopefully go back to quasi-normal; at least Izzie hadn't come to Meredith to compare notes on George in bed. Those memories, Meredith was constantly thankful, were even fuzzier than those of her first time with Derek. There was something to be said for the occasional amnesia-inducing effects of overindulging in tequila.

Izzie sighed loudly. "So this guy…does he have any friends you could set me up with?"

Meredith immediately thought of Mark and laughed out loud. "I…I don't think so," she shook her head, keeping her eyes averted so that Izzie couldn't see the mischievous glint in them. "But I'll ask. She surveyed the bed once more before finally deciding on her lavender sweater; it was one of her favorites, and Derek had always liked it, too. She grabbed the sweater and a pair of black pants and gave Izzie a half smile. "I need to go shower."

Izzie took the hint and rose from the chair, and by the time Meredith had locked herself in the bathroom, Izzie was back in her own room. Meredith showered quickly and dressed, and as she put on her makeup and blew her hair out straight, she went over the dialogue she'd composed and rehearsed in her head. She'd imagined the conversation she planned to have with Derek a thousand and one times since her therapy appointment, but as the minutes ticked closer to seven-thirty, her carefully scripted words jumbled together and she couldn't remember all of the points she'd wanted to make. Maybe she should have made notes. Cue cards. Forgetting wasn't an option—there were things, big things, that had to be said on this date, because this date? It wasn't a date. Except that it was, but it was also so much more. Their dinner table would be their negotiating table as they hammered out the framework to shape this new attempt at a life together. The rules they made tonight could make or break everything, and she had to make sure that everything went right.

She'd worked herself up into a jittery mess of nerves by seven-fifteen, and she tried to calm herself down by pacing back and forth through the living room, wringing her hands and casting frequent glances out the window for any sign of Derek's Range Rover. After five minutes of the back-and-forth, Izzie joined her vigil, only to retreat to the kitchen with the assertion that Meredith's pacing was making _her_ nervous. At seven twenty-eight, Meredith began to fear that Derek wasn't going to show up. She chastised herself immediately for it. Derek wouldn't stand her up, not after everything they'd been through, the weeks that he'd been trying to talk her into another chance. Not after the way he'd smiled at her when they'd made the date and how excited he'd been this afternoon when she saw him. He was coming. Delayed at the hospital, maybe, but he'd show up. He would. He had to.

She didn't hear his car pull into the driveway because she was too busy rummaging through her purse for her cell phone, hoping fervently that she'd have a message from him that he'd gotten caught up with a patient, but was on his way. Because he wouldn't _not_ show up. He'd promised to call if he'd be late. She frowned when her phone showed no missed calls, and the digital numbers switched to seven-thirty just moments before Meredith jumped, startled by a knock on the door. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the door, pausing to take a deep breath and compose herself before she opened it. Derek never had to know how stressed she'd been—she could be cool, collected, completely nonchalant.

She opened the door and the butterflies in her stomach leapt into a fluttering fury of activity when she saw him on the other side. "Hey," she breathed.

"Hey," he replied with a soft smile.

She shifted her weight awkwardly and her attention went to the crook of his arm. "You brought flowers," she observed.

He glanced down and nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "I figured I'd hand deliver them this time. Since we have a date."

"Right," Meredith laughed, surprised out how nervous her voice sounded despite her best efforts to quell her anxiety. "Um…come in for a second, and I'll put them in some water."

Izzie's voice carried from the kitchen as soon as Derek had stepped into the foyer. "Meredith? Is that him? The guy?" She hurried into the room and stopped abruptly, her sock-clad feet sliding on the hardwood floor. "Oh, Der—I mean, Dr. Shepherd. Hi, um—excuse me for a second—" Izzie yanked Meredith by the arm and pulled her aside. "What are you going to do?" she whispered desperately. "He can't be here when your date gets here—do you want me to distract him?"

Meredith cut her eyes to Derek, whose smirk confirmed that he'd overheard Izzie's panic. "Izzie—" Meredith started gently.

Izzie looked from Derek to Meredith, and then her eyes lit on the lilies still held in Derek's hands. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped with the sudden realization that Derek _was_ Meredith's date. "McDreamy?" Izzie yelped. "All this time, McDreamy's been the one sending you the flowers?"

Meredith pretended not to notice the pink that had suddenly colored Derek's cheeks. The McDreamy thing embarrassed him—not when she teased him about it privately, but when other people used it—and she wouldn't call him out on it. This time. "Yeah," Meredith admitted to Izzie. "It's been Derek. I was just going to find a vase for these and then we'll be gone—"

"I'll do it," Izzie offered, grabbing the flowers from Meredith. "You kids go, and uh—have fun. Don't stay out too late, and—"

"I'll have her home by midnight," Derek assured her wryly. As Izzie disappeared into the kitchen, he placed one hand on the small of Meredith's back and smiled at her. "I'm ready when you are."

Meredith sighed, her mind racing to gather her wits. "Right. Okay. Just—let me grab my purse and we can go." She turned and hurried to retrieve her purse from the couch, hastily stuffing her wallet and phone back into it as she returned to Derek.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" he asked, his blue eyes twinkling with amusement.

"What?" Meredith replied, quickly running through her mental checklist. Clothes, check. Makeup—minimal, but done. Hair—exceptionally good today, if she did say so herself. She'd brushed her teeth—

Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Derek chuckled softly and clued her in. "Shoes, Mere," he said gently.

It was Meredith's turn to blush furiously as she found her black flats by the couch, exactly where she'd left them, and slipped her feet into them. She avoided Derek's teasing smirk as she returned to his side and followed him outside. As they walked toward his car, Derek took her hand in his, squeezing lighting as he laced his fingers through hers.

"I had my phone in my hand, ready to call you if I wasn't pulling in the driveway at seven-thirty," he said; the comment seemed to come out of nowhere, and it caught Meredith completely off-guard.

She looked up at him sharply. "What?"

"You thought I wasn't coming. You thought I was going to stand you up," Derek replied. It wasn't a question; he said it like he was absolutely certain, like it was as much a given as rain in Seattle or the sun rising in the east.

"No!" Meredith protested, the lie falling quickly and easily from her lips. "No, I didn't think—"

"I could see it in your eyes when you opened the door, Meredith," Derek sighed. They reached his car, and she leaned against the passenger door, biting her lower lip nervously as he turned to face her. "Listen, Mere…I want this too badly to let you down now. I don't want to fail you anymore. I was always going to show up tonight. I would have been here ten minutes ago, but my surgery ran late and I still had to change and get ready."

The honesty in his voice reassured her and she felt the tension seeping out of her body, and though she still felt somewhat anxious, it was a hopeful sort of nervous. She cocked her head and smiled at him, noticing for the first time that he'd shaved for her and that his dark curls were still slightly damp from a recent shower. "You did clean up pretty nicely," she flirted.

Derek grinned and opened the car door for her. "You don't look half-bad yourself. Come on, we're going to be late."

She climbed inside and buckled her seatbelt as Derek shut her door and slid into the driver's seat. "So will you tell me _now_ where you're taking me?" she asked as Derek turned the key in the ignition.

He placed one hand behind her seat and looked over his shoulder as he backed out of her driveway. "Why are you so determined to have the surprise ruined for you?" he replied.

"I just want to know," Meredith insisted. "You're not taking me for Chinese, right?"

"Why would I do that?" Derek retorted. "I _would_ like to take you on a second date eventually, you know. Taking you for something you hate isn't going to win me any points. Just be patient. You'll find out where we're going."

Meredith folded her arms over her chest and huffed. Derek didn't acknowledge her pouting, though she thought she saw a smile just waiting to appear on his lips. "You're wearing the shirt," she observed. "Your good-looking red shirt."

That was enough to draw the pleased grin onto his face. "You remembered. I figured it worked for me once…maybe it would be good luck again."

"I almost wore the dress," Meredith admitted. "The black one, with—"

"The slit up the side?" Derek finished. "I remember. I have very fond memories of you in that dress, too. I have very fond memories of getting you _out_ of that dress—"

"Which is why I didn't wear it," Meredith said. "I didn't want you getting ideas."

"Oh, I'll have ideas no matter what you wear," Derek assured her smugly. "But I won't act on them. And for what it's worth, if you picked your outfit based on that criteria--I've gotten you out of that sweater before, too."

Meredith was pretty sure that there wasn't much in her wardrobe that Derek had peeled, torn, ripped, or otherwise removed from her body at one point or another, but pointing that out to _him_ wasn't going to do her any favors. "Is it pathetic?" she asked thoughtfully. "Is it pathetic that we both thought about wearing the same clothes we were wearing the night we met?"

"It might be a little corny," Derek agreed. "But I'm not going to call it pathetic, because if I do, it doesn't make me feel good about what I've planned for the rest of the night."

She tried to get him to elaborate, but he remained steadfast and determined that she'd asked to be surprised, and so she would be. Instead, she asked him about how his surgery had gone, and they talked about work and pretended that neither of them was concerned that they'd throw up their dinner from nerves. The small talk served its intended purpose, however, and by the time Derek made a right turn into a crowded parking lot, Meredith had almost forgotten how terrified she'd been that something about this date was going to go wrong. She peeked out the window to see where they were as Derek parked and turned back to him with a grin. "Is there a steak with my name on it tonight?" she asked.

He smiled sheepishly. "It's pathetic, isn't it? I was thinking about what you said, about making rules tonight—and I thought it might be…I don't know, symbolic or something. But it's not, is it? It's just corny and pathetic."

"No," she shook her head. "It's sweet. Really, it is. But if I so much as _think_ I see a leggy redhead or nurse coming in our direction—"

"Don't worry," he assured her with a wink as he unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the car door. "I only invited my mother."

"You're a funny man, Derek," Meredith replied dryly. She hopped down to the ground and walked around the Range Rover to meet Derek, who immediately grabbed her hand in his. "I'm serious. I will leave and never look back if your surprises tonight include another ex."

"No more surprises," he promised, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Just you and me, and a nice dinner, and a good bottle of wine."

"And talking," Meredith added quickly. The talking was the most important part.

"Talking," Derek murmured in agreement. "Definitely talking, and making rules."

They were seated quickly, and Meredith tried not to react when the hostess who showed them to their table referred to them as Mr. and Mrs. Shepherd. She'd seen the panic flicker across Derek's face for the briefest second when he'd cast a quick glance at her to gauge her reaction, and she didn't want to give him anything else to stress over. It had been an honest mistake, and she didn't want Derek thinking that she was freaking out or reconsidering the date. She smiled at him reassuringly, but as soon as Derek had chosen a bottle of wine and their server had taken their order, Meredith reverted to her nervous habits. She ran her fingers along the hem of the linen tablecloth, studied the pattern etched into the wine glass, anything to take her mind off the daunting task at hand. They needed to talk. They were supposed to talk. There were so, so many things to be said, but that was the problem. Where did she start? Who spoke first? How did they figure out how to do this, how to make _them_ work, without taking any vestige of romance out of the equation? It was a date, not a business meeting, and it hardly seemed appropriate to launch immediately into a list of demands and regulations and prohibitions, even if those were the exact things they needed to hash out before they had a shot at being a happy, functional couple…

Derek let her have a few minutes with her racing thoughts before he broke the silence. "How long do you think it took Izzie to call your friends after we left?"

Meredith looked up and smiled softly. "She hasn't yet," she replied. "She'll want to see their faces when she tells them, especially because she thinks she's the first to know."

"She's not?" Derek asked.

"I told Cristina last night," Meredith admitted. "I wasn't going to, but there was tequila involved and…I don't know. I wanted to tell her, but we just had that fight a few days ago, so I wasn't sure if telling her was a good thing so she wouldn't feel left out, or if it would backfire because she doesn't think it's a good idea."

Derek nodded slowly in understanding. "So what happened?"

Meredith shrugged. "She'd had a lot of alcohol. Vodka makes her extra mean. She might have reiterated how stupid she thinks I am, but you know…I'm not putting too much stock in it."

"I'm glad," Derek smiled. After a moment, he offered a confession of his own. "I told Mark. I don't know why…I just…I wanted to tell someone, and my sisters…they don't know that we even broke up, so they weren't really an option…"

"Thank god," Meredith breathed. "I can only imagine how happy Nancy would have been to know that you dumped the slutty intern."

"Stop it," Derek's warning growl took her aback. "Don't call yourself that—and for the record, I don't give a damn what Nancy thinks. The rest of my family—they'd love you."

Meredith wasn't used to the idea of "family" and "love" going together; the only family she'd had to speak of were a few cousins and an aunt in Boston, and though she'd played with her cousins as a small child, once Ellis had moved back to Seattle, Meredith had only seen her extended family at reunions, where she fulfilled the role of disappointing black sheep, a pitiful wasted potential in the shadow of her more cookie-cutter honor roll student cousins. Families freaked her out, especially big ones like Derek's, the kind that took family portraits like the one on Derek's desk and called each other twelve times a week (except Derek) and had family dinners and holiday traditions. She had no idea how to be part of a family like that, she realized with overwhelming dread, and if—when—she and Derek finally figured things out, she'd be thrust right into the middle of the legendary Shepherd clan. She heard Derek call her name softly, and the sound of his voice was enough to snap her out of her worrying thoughts.

"What _are_ you going to tell your family?" she asked, pretending that she hadn't temporarily checked out of the conversation. "About us?" Surely they'd wonder why the girl Derek had—as far as they knew—been dating for nearly a year, the woman he'd left Addison for—remained an enigma to them, why they'd never met her, so much as seen a picture of her, why she hadn't come home with Derek for the holidays—

"I'll tell them you had to work," Derek replied simply. "Which is the truth, really. You wouldn't have had the time to take off work even if we hadn't broken up. They'll understand. If anything, I"ll get extra points with them."

"And why is that?" Meredith asked.

"Coming home to spend Christmas with them, instead of being with you," Derek explained. "This is supposed to be our first Christmas together…"

Meredith didn't miss the regret and sadness in his voice. "We'll have next year," she offered, trying to keep her tone positive and hopeful.

He smiled wistfully. "Yeah. Next year."

Meredith sighed and tried again. "Tell me about Christmas with your family. You're one of those cheerful holiday families, right? With the eggnog and the grotesque holiday sweaters? Does yours have a Christmas tree or a reindeer? I'm thinking reindeer. The one with the red nose—Randolph?"

"Rudolph," he corrected immediately, shaking his head in disbelief at her lack of knowledge regarding all things childhood tradition. "Seriously, Mere?"

She actually _had_ known that one, but the grin on his face was worth pretending that she hadn't. She laughed and smiled back. "So?" she persisted. "Christmas tree or reindeer?"

"Reindeer," he admitted. "But we haven't worn sweaters like that since we were ten. Except Nancy's husband, Brad. He wears them as a joke. The last year I was home, he had one with a Christmas tree and lights that actually worked. They blinked and everything."

"You're kidding," Meredith accused. There was no way people actually did things like that, outside of holiday movies, and, well—Izzie. She could see Izzie doing something like that. "I can't imagine Nancy being married to someone who'd do that."

"Brad brings Nancy off her high horse," Derek replied. "That's part of why we like him so much. She's much less snobby and pretentious when he's around. Christmas is—it's fun with my family. Completely chaotic, but fun. It's…"

"You miss it," Meredith murmured. She was glad she'd done this, got him talking about his family. She knew precious little about Derek's life before she'd entered the picture, and they both seemed to be relaxing with the topic as far away from the state of their relationship as possible.

"When we were little, we'd all sleep on the floor in my parents' room on Christmas Eve," Derek remembered. "I don't know how they didn't trip over us when they got up to put the presents out—I guess we were so tired after midnight mass that we slept pretty soundly. My dad would wake us up the next morning, and we'd run into the living room to open our presents. My mom cooked breakfast while we played with our new stuff, and then in the afternoon, she'd make us dress up and take our picture by the fireplace, and then we'd drive across town to visit my aunts and uncles and cousins. After my dad died, Mom did everything the same way, as best as she could. When the girls got older, we stopped sleeping in Mom's room, but we always spend Christmas Eve together."

"Even now?" Meredith asked.

"Even now," he nodded. "Kathleen got married when I was fourteen, and she made John stay at Mom's on Christmas Eve the first year they were married. Maggie married Andy the next year and did the same thing, and the rest of us just followed their example. It's insane now, with all the kids. Sleeping bags all over the floor. Mom has to hire a professional cleaning crew when everyone leaves. You'll see…one day. Maybe…maybe next year, if you want to…if we're okay…"

"Maybe," Meredith said weakly. His face fell slightly, and she hurried to reassure him. "I've never done the family thing, remember? I think last year was the first time anyone put up a big tree or hung stockings on the mantle since I was five years old."

Derek frowned and deep lines creased his forehead. "Your mother never gave you a Christmas tree? Santa?"

"Fairytales, Derek," she reminded him. "I had a Christmas tree for a few years, when we lived in Boston. She still felt guilty then, I think, but when we moved back to Seattle…I spent a lot of Christmases at the hospital. Dead trees were a fire hazard and Santa was a fantasy, and besides—and letting her daughter go sit on some strange man's lap in the middle of a department store was just irresponsible parenting."

Derek scowled and his eyes turned dark with anger. "Every time I learn something new about how you grew up," he muttered, "I think I hate your mother a little more."

"Don't," Meredith shook her head. "I'm getting better, Derek. I had a crappy childhood, and it sucks. But I can't…I don't want to let that mean that I have to have to be a miserable adult, too. Maybe…maybe it all worked out okay."

"What do you mean?" Derek asked, bringing his wine glass to his mouth. He studied her over the rim of the glass as he took a slow sip.

"Just…" Meredith sighed, frustrated that she couldn't figure out the right way to word her thoughts without sounding crazy. "Alex says I was raised by wolves, which is…kind of true. And yeah, maybe it would have been really nice to have grown up in a functional, nuclear family, but if I had…I probably wouldn't be who I am. I'm not saying that there aren't things I'd take back if I _could_," she added hastily, and George's face immediately came to mind, "but…if I wasn't me, I might not have been in that bar looking for someone to take home that night, and you and I might not be here right now. If I'd had my dad and a mom like Susan…if I'd had that sort of family, I'd probably be nice and sane like Molly and Lexie instead of dark and twisty like me. I might have gotten married when I was twenty-two instead of jetting off to Europe, and had lots of babies instead of going to med school, and then where would you and I be?"

Derek stared at her wordlessly, and Meredith fidgeted in her seat nervously. Without thinking, she bit into her lower lip and grabbed her wine glass. The dark red liquid slid down her throat, but it didn't have the emboldening effect of tequila. Derek didn't take his eyes off of her, and she blushed under his intense gaze. "_What_?" she finally cried in exasperation.

He shook his head slowly as a broad grin spread across his face. "I just can't believe how much good therapy is doing you."

Meredith blushed again. "Rachel says I'm making very good progress coming to terms with my relationship with my mother."

"Rachel?" Derek questioned.

"My therapist," Meredith clarified.

"Oh, your therapist," Derek laughed and nodded, as if the answer should have been obvious. "You're on a first-name basis with your therapist now?"

"Well, since Monday," Meredith replied. "It's weird, right? I'm still getting used to it, because she's been Dr. Hadden for the last month and a half, but she wants me to call her Rachel now. It's supposed to 'foster an inviting atmosphere to our sessions and encourage openness and create a sense of familiarity.' Or something like that. It's supposed to make me trust her more, now that we're getting to some of the more complicated issues in therapy."

"More complicated," Derek repeated thoughtfully. "Is that just a nicer way of telling me that you're talking to your therapist about me?"

"No," Meredith said immediately. "And yes. It's not just you, but we are talking about you. We talked a lot about you Monday."

"Oh really?" Derek's interest had been piqued, and she shouldn't be surprised. She loved him, but he _did_ tend to have a slightly inflated ego; of course he'd be intrigued to know that he was the topic of someone's conversation, good or bad. "And what did you two talk about?"

She didn't answer right away, because their waiter arrived at that moment with their dinner. The question hung in the air between them while Meredith cut into her steak, making sure that it was still a little pink inside, but not bloody. It was tricky, but one bite assured her that the chef has struck the perfect balance. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Meredith paused and let her fork clatter to the plate.

"I figure…we have two options," she began, hurrying to get the words out before she lost the nerve to say them. Once she started, she'd be okay, but the first words were the hardest. Derek looked up at her and she waited until he'd finished chewing and swallowed his bite of steak before she continued. "I can wait until I'm all whole and healed in therapy, which could take…I don't know how long…and we can stay broken up while I'm doing that and then hopefully we'll still want to be together at the end. I'm not sure I'm crazy about that one."

"I _know_ I'm not," Derek replied immediately.

"Then there's door number two," Meredith said hopefully. "We can try again now, knowing that it will be slow going and that I have a ton of crap to deal with in therapy…but we can work through it all. Together."

"I vote for door number two," Derek said firmly. "So…how does this work? How do we start over?"

"I'm glad you asked that," Meredith sighed. "Do you remember that night, in the bar? Not the first night, but the night when you wanted to start over and I tried to say no, that there was too much water under the bridge?"

Derek smirked at the memory. "I believe your exact words were 'water under the thing.'"

"Whatever," Meredith rolled her eyes. Leave it to Derek to remember the technicalities of her diction-deficient idioms. "We said we were starting over then, Derek, putting all that behind us…but I don't think we did. I don't think we _can_."

"You don't?" Derek nearly yelped. "But you just said—"

"No," she tossed her head and reached for her wine. "Derek, there _is_ no starting fresh. I can't go back to being that girl you met in the bar, and you can't be that guy again. There's a lot of water under the bridge, and I'm not saying it's too much, but it's _there_, and we can't take the shortcuts, Derek. We can't just cross the bridge without paying attention to the water." She trailed off when she saw the worry weighing heavier and heavier on his features and buried her face in her hands. She groaned into her palms and wondered why she seemed so determined to make it sound like she was breaking up with him before they were even back together. "I think…I think even though it's scary, and the bridge looks like the safer path…I think we have to just…jump in and wade through it all."

It was a less than stellar finish to the speech she'd planned out so carefully, and she chided herself mentally for her stupidity. She'd known that she should have made index cards to remind herself of what to say. Derek showed no reaction for a painfully long moment before his eyes lit up with a teasing spark. "Your metaphors are getting better."

"I'm being serious, Derek!" she cried. "If we're going to do this, we have to do it right. We need to talk about everything—Addison and Finn and…Rose…and _George_ if that still bothers you, and my accident and your divorce…and why we broke up and why we hurt each other…we need to talk, Derek. There are things that have to be said, and if it means we lock ourselves in your trailer for hours and fight and yell and throw things at each other, we need to do it if this thing with us is ever going to work."

"Okay," he said softly, never taking his eyes from hers. He infuriated her when he did this, when she got herself worked up and emotional and _said_ things, and all he had were cryptic, one-word responses.

She swallowed the lump that had grown in her throat. "Okay?" she repeated weakly.

"Okay," he said again.

"Do you really think we can do this?" she asked. "That we can make this work?"

"I know that if I can't make it work with you, I don't want to make it work with anyone," Derek replied in the soft, purring tone that he reserved only for her. "I know that I love you, even if it scares you to hear me say that. I know that you're it for me, Meredith. It's taken a lot for me to realize that, and I've hurt you more than I can forgive myself for in the process, but I know now, Mere. No one else can come close to you."

She both hated and loved when he did _this_, when he made pretty speeches and said everything she wanted to hear from him and made all her defenses melt. She hated that he had this effect on her, and she had no recourse for retaliation. "You _can_ be pretty brainless, for a brain surgeon," she teased.

"Are you ever going to get tired of that joke?" Derek chuckled.

"Maybe," she shrugged her shoulders playfully and smirked. "Probably not. I'll probably still be using it when you're eighty."

"Good," he replied.

She hadn't been expecting that response. "Good?"

"It means you'll still be there when I'm eighty," he murmured.

She smiled hesitantly, then averted her eyes and picked up her fork. It didn't make sense that her nerves had left her with even less of an appetite now, after it was over, after they'd tentatively agreed that they were, in fact, making another go of things, but she could barely force herself to eat. She was hungry, and her food was delicious, but there were too many words that needed to come _out_ of her mouth to allow nourishment _in_. She managed to pick her way through half of her steak before she threw down her fork again. Derek looked up expectantly, his eyes sparkling in anticipation of another rush of thoughts to tumble from her lips.

"Do you want…I mean, do you think…how do you feel about coming to see my therapist with me sometime?" she blurted. His eyes widened in surprise, and she instantly wished she could take the invitation back. He was freaked out—he didn't want—she was scaring him off already--

"Like couples therapy?" he asked slowly.

"I guess," Meredith nodded. "I know you tried it with Addison, but—"

"I didn't want to work it out with Addison," he cut her off. "I went because it was what I was supposed to do. I want to work it out with you, and if you think it would help—"

"Maybe not a recurring thing," Meredith said. "But just—maybe to help us, the first time—to show us how to start talking about things?"

"I think…I think that could be good for us," Derek agreed. "Tell me when, and I'm there."

"Just like that?" Meredith raised an eyebrow skeptically.

"Just like that," he replied. "I'm serious about this, Meredith. Whatever it takes for us to get it right this time, I'm in."

"I'm in it, too," she assured him, thinking back to day of Cristina's would-be wedding, when he'd begged her to tell him that she valued their relationship like he did. "Do you want to go for a walk?" she suggested suddenly. "I know I said I wanted neutral territory for this date, but…we could go somewhere. To talk, and do the rules thing."

He smiled softly. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

When their waiter passed a few minutes later, Derek caught his attention and requested the bill. As soon as Derek's VISA had been returned, Derek stood and offered his hand to Meredith, who allowed him to help her up from her chair. She shivered as soon as they'd stepped outside into the chill night air and turned her face into his chest. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead, a quick, gentle habit that hadn't been broken even by six weeks' separation. "Sure you still want to go for a walk?" he murmured in her ear.

She nodded against him. "We have to make rules," she insisted.

"Okay," he consented. "Where do you want to walk?"

Meredith pulled back from him and scanned her surroundings to establish her bearings. "There's a coffee shop that way," she suggested, pointing to the left.

"Meredith, we're in Seattle," Derek teased. "There are _twelve _coffee shops that way."

That remark earned him a slap on the arm. "_The_ coffee shop, then," she amended. "The one you used to stop at on your way to work, because it's better than the hospital coffee?"

"Oh, _that_ one," Derek replied, as though he hadn't known which one she meant all along. "Okay, come on." He threaded his fingers through hers and tugged her toward his car.

"No," Meredith protested, planting her feet firmly as though that would stop him from being able to drag all hundred-and-ten pounds of her wherever he wanted. He turned back to her and looked at her quizzically. "We're supposed to walk."

"We are," Derek nodded. "But unless you'd like to freeze, I was going to get my coat out of the car for you."

"Oh," Meredith's cheeks flushed a light shade of pink; if Derek commented on it, she'd blame it on the cold nipping at her skin. "Okay then." She was thankful for the warmth of Derek's wool coat when he helped her slip it on, and she fumbled with the buttons with fingers numbed by the temperature of the air. She stuffed her hands into the pockets to warm them, and as they started to walk, Derek's hand slipped into the left pocket to entwine their fingers again. She smiled at him happily, and the easy silence they fell into as they wove in and out of the crowds on the sidewalk almost said more about what was happening than any words could.

A blast of warm air and the aroma of freshly ground beans greeted them inside the coffeehouse. The room was small—cozy—and surprisingly somewhat crowded; before Meredith could fully take it all in, Derek was pulling her toward a secluded loveseat in the back corner. "This work for you?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's good," Meredith replied, unbuttoning his jacket quickly to rid herself of the extra layer. "Do you want coffee or anything? It can be my treat, since you got dinner."

"I've got it," Derek shook his head. "I'm taking you out, remember? I'll be right back—I know what you like."

Meredith made herself comfortable on the couch, and wondered if she should point out to Derek that even if he'd asked her out, it was only because she'd told him to. Did that mean that she'd technically been the one to arrange the date? She wasn't sure. She _was_ sure that it didn't matter; Derek was enjoying spoiling her too much to let her think about paying for anything. This time, she'd let him get away with it. She'd insist on helping the next time they went out. Next time—there was going to be a next time. They hadn't even made rules yet, and already she was planning for there to be a next time. And a time after that, and after that.

Derek returned with two Styrofoam cups of coffee, and Meredith was pleased to discover after a careful sip that he _had_, in fact, remembered her favorite cappuccino. "Thank you," she said softly as he joined her on the couch. He reached his hand toward her, as though he'd thought about holding hers again, but flexed it instead and let it fall to his knee, apparently deciding against the gesture.

"So this rules thing…" he started slowly. "How does this work?"

Meredith sighed and unconsciously ripped the corner off of a napkin, worrying the paper between her thumb and index finger while she gathered her thoughts. "I want…I need us to take our time," he said. "And I know that might not work for you, because you have plans and you want things for us and you want them now—but I'm not there yet."

"So we're going back to where we were before we broke up?" Derek asked. "Before Rose?"

"No," Meredith replied. "Sort of. Not exactly." She took a deep breath and tried to articulate her thoughts more clearly. "I still don't want you seeing anyone but me—"

"Done," he assured her immediately.

She smiled softly. "Good. But—I'm better than I was then. Remember, there were a hundred steps? I've made a couple on my own—now there's more like—ninety-three or so."

"That's closer," Derek said optimistically.

"Quit interrupting!" Meredith scolded; Derek gave her his best abashed grin before pressing his lips together obediently. "We're better than we were then," she continued, "but…I think we need to go back, too. That night at Joe's, after you went camping…you said you wanted me to know you, and I don't." She did know him, she argued with herself. She knew lots of things about him, not just his mother's maiden name and that he had horrible taste in music. She knew that he liked to sleep on the left side of the bed, and even though most of the time he spooned against her when they slept, he loved it when she cuddled against his side and fell asleep with her head on his chest. She knew that he liked to whisper to her and leave kisses all over her face and the column of throat after making love, and she knew that left to his own devices, he would sulk for hours after losing a patient, because in some ways, Derek was still a six-year-old boy who pouted when things didn't work out the way he wanted. She knew him but—"I don't know everything," she told him, "and I want to. I just…I want us to do things right this time, Derek."

"We will," he promised.

"Don't say that yet," she warned. This was the part she'd been most worried about—the part she was afraid would be the deal-breaker for him—and she wanted it on the table before she let this go any further. "I don't want us to have sex for a while," she said quickly. "I wanted that last time but you pushed and I wanted and…we both gave in too quickly. But I want…I need there to be more to us than sex."

"There _is_ more to us than sex, Meredith," Derek said almost indignantly.

"I know," she nodded. "But no one else knows that, Derek, and I know I shouldn't care what anyone else thinks, but I'm tired of the judging. And I think it would be good for us if we take sex out of the picture for a while, and I know you aren't going to like that, but—"

"No, it's fine," he assured her.

"It is?" she replied, so surprised by the certainty in voice that she dropped what remained of her napkin to join the pile of shredded paper that had accumulated on her lap.

"It is," he repeated with an encouraging smile. "I'm not saying that I won't miss the sex, but…if I have you, it's enough for me until you're ready. If you need to take it slow…I can take it slow."

Heat rose to Meredith's face and the mischievous smirk on Derek's lips told her that they were both remembering the same night. The light from the lamp behind her reflected in Derek's eyes, flickering like candles in the dark of his pupils. "And no baths," she added quickly. "You are not allowed to see me naked, and no sleepovers. And…you have to show up when you say you're going to, and if you can't, you have to let me know so I don't think that I did something to make you stand me up."

"Mm," Derek hummed his agreement. "Any other demands, Dr. Grey?"

"I don't want you to talk to Rose," Meredith replied.

His face fell slightly, and with it, so did Meredith's heart. "Meredith, I don't—" he faltered. "I haven't talked to her in weeks. I don't _want_ to talk to her, but—we work with her, Meredith. I can't exactly ask another nurse to ask Rose to hand me a scalpel, can I?"

The petty part of Meredith wanted to say that, yes, he could do exactly that. He _could_ refuse to allow Rose in his OR, but the rational, slowly maturing part of Meredith won. It wasn't fair to ask him to compromise his professional reputation, his integrity, by blacklisting a nurse who, professionally speaking, had done nothing wrong. "Just—tell me, okay?" she sighed weakly. "I know—I trust you not to do anything again," she said, and she realized as she said it that she _did_ trust him not to make that mistake twice, "but I just—I want to hear it from you. Even if it's just telling me that nothing happened, just to keep that part of me that gets paranoid from thinking that you're hiding something—"

"Okay," Derek bridged the space between them by taking her hand in his running his thumb across her knuckles. After a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Do I get to make rules, too?"

She hadn't prepared for that, but it didn't seem right to not let him have a say in how this was going to work. "Okay," she said warily. "I guess that's fair."

He didn't need a second to think about what conditions he might place on their relationship. "You don't get to shut me out," he said, but it was less of a command and more of a plea. "You have to talk to me—let me in. When something's wrong and you're upset, I want you to come to me. No more running away. If you're not sure how you feel yet and you want some time to think for yourself, then tell me that, but don't just…I need to matter to you, Meredith."

"You do," she protested. "You _do_ matter, Derek—"

"But you won't talk to me," he shook his head. "Or you didn't, before. You'd talk to your friends, but you wouldn't let me help you. I need you to trust me. I need you to let me in and stop running from me. That's my rule."

"That's going to be a hard one," Meredith admitted. "Not because I don't want to, but…I'm still learning how to do this talking thing. The therapy is helping, but I'll try if you'll help me and be patient with me."

"Deal," Derek agreed. "So that's it? Those are the rules?"

"For now," Meredith replied. "I reserve the right to add new ones if I need to. So we're going to do this? We're going to try again and you're okay with taking things slow while I'm working things out in therapy?"

"No dating anyone else. Talking to each other," Derek summarized the rules they'd established. "No running. Showing up. No sex. No thinking about sex."

"You can _think_ about it," Meredith shrugged playfully. "You just won't get to act on any of those dirty thoughts of yours."

"Good," Derek grinned devilishly. "I was already planning on breaking that rule. But seriously…yes, to everything. We're trying again and we made rules and we're going to follow them and we're going to get it right. We're Derek-and-Meredith again."

"We're Derek-and-Meredith again," Meredith repeated.

They stayed on their sofa for another half-hour, but by the time Meredith bundled herself back up in Derek's coat and they braved the cold outside again, Meredith could barely remember anything they'd said after the rules. Everything—Derek's jokes and stories and his eyes and smile and the very unfamiliar sense of pure, unadulterated contentment that had overtaken her body—melted into something that Meredith could only define as giddiness, and that happiness, that _hope_ that somehow, against the odds, she and Derek were finally going to get it right—_together—_kept her warm on the walk back to Derek's car.

He only released her hand after he'd helped her into her seat, and he reclaimed it immediately after he'd started the car. On the drive back, he regaled her with more anecdotes about Shepherd Christmases, and she found herself almost—but only _almost_—regretting that she wouldn't experience it with him. She was happy—blissfully happy—with how things had gone tonight, but she wasn't so blindly euphoric that she considered throwing herself into the lions' den. Despite how wonderful Derek made Christmas with his family sound, she knew that whenever she _did_ meet Derek's sisters, it would most definitely not be the uncomplicated, perfect, Christmas-card scene he was painting for her.

When they stopped in her driveway, he turned to her and frowned regretfully. "If I'd known that tonight was happening…I wouldn't have made plans to go home for Christmas," he told her. "I never pictured spending our first Christmas together _apart_."

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "Izzie has a big Christmas thing planned so I'll be suffering through that. And you'll have your family; you won't even miss me."

"Ah, there you're wrong," he replied. "But I'll call from New York, if that's okay—"

"You know, you will see me at work tomorrow," she reminded him. The way he was acting, it was like he was leaving her for a period of months, not just days, although she suspected she might feel that way too, once he was actually across the country and not just across the Sound.

"Right," he nodded. "I guess…I guess I should be going then. Work…"

"You have an early surgery scheduled," Meredith said quickly. If he thought she was reluctant for him to leave, he'd stay with her, and he _did_ need to go get some sleep before his surgery. Besides, she had no doubt that Izzie was still awake, watching out the windows for Meredith to return so that she could demand the details of when, exactly, Meredith had decided to give McDreamy another chance, and why no one had known about it.

He exhaled a heavy, tired sigh. "Come on, I'll walk you to the door."

They ambled slowly up the walk to the door, both exhausted, but both reluctant to let their evening end. It had been perfect, Meredith thought, even if she'd forgotten half of her preplanned speeches. The important things had been said, and she'd laughed and smiled so much that she was certain the muscles in her face and abdomen would both be aching in the morning, and now, outside her front door at the end of the night, she had the knowledge of her new, terrifying, and exhilarating reality. She and Derek were back together. Really, really back together. There were rules; that made it official. She and Derek were a couple again.

She turned to face him and thanked him for their date, and he smiled in reply. "Do you want to have lunch with me tomorrow?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "At the hospital? In the cafeteria? Where everyone can see us?"

"Mm," he murmured as he placed his hands on her waist. "Are you ready for that?"

She thought for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Okay. It's a date."

He pulled her tight against him and held her to his chest; she wrapped her arms around his neck and lay her head on his shoulder, shutting her eyes as she felt his breath stirring gently in her hair. After several long moments that ended far too quickly, he pulled back slightly and Meredith raised her head to meet his eyes.

"Are you going to let me kiss you goodnight?" he asked.

She tilted her head to one side and studied him thoughtfully. "On the cheek," she decided. "What kind of girl would I be to let you go too far on the first date?"

He flashed her a grin full of unsaid but piercing, knowing thoughts about exactly what she'd let him do on their very first night, and swiftly dipped his head to his right and brushed his lips against her cheek. She shut her eyes on impulse, and he took that as permission to kiss her again, leaving another on her jaw before placing a third on her forehead. "It's going to work this time, Meredith," he whispered in her ear before kissing her there, too.

She calculated that that was probably the seventeenth time he'd said those words to her tonight, but they were no less reassuring to hear. They were going to work. They were getting it right this time around. She smiled up at him, and when she carefully pressed her lips to his cheek, the kiss wasn't a hope, but a promise. "I know."


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Thanks for your patience while I was working on this chapter. I hope you enjoy and find it worth the wait. **

News of Meredith and Derek's reconciliation spread through the hospital like wildfire. They both pretended not to notice the whispers that followed them in the halls, and truthfully, Meredith didn't think that the first day was all that different from the last six weeks. She and Derek had always been careful at work; since their relationship had been frowned upon and taboo from the beginning, they had always made a concentrated effort to separate their personal and professional lives as much as possible. She'd always liked that—it was enough to know that she still faced the occasional criticism from those who thought Meredith had skated into her position on Ellis's reputation, and to add in the insinuations that she was being given special treatment because she was involved with Derek? Even if _she_ knew, and Derek knew, and her friends knew, that she'd more than earned her spot in the program, and that even if Derek _did_ occasionally offer her a spot in one of his surgeries, he made her work for it—even though she knew that she didn't take advantage of her connections, she also knew that people would still talk. Maybe it was because Derek had already spent more than a decade _married _to a coworker and knew the ropes, but most of the time, Meredith thought that they handled the balancing pretty well.

That wasn't to say that there weren't problems. Derek and Meredith were both guilty of occasionally taking work conflicts home or letting a personal disagreement shade their interactions at the hospital, and on the other end of the spectrum, Meredith couldn't really justify their on-call room trysts as appropriate workplace behavior either, especially between an attending and his subordinate. The balancing act was tricky, but, Meredith assured herself over the next few days following their date, they'd work that out. It was just part of figuring out how to be that happy, functional, mutually committed couple they were determined to be. If it was any consolation, Derek seemed to be nearly as lost as she was, although the change in his demeanor was exhibited much more obviously than hers. Derek was impossibly cheerful and outgoing and…mirthful, and Meredith thought that he was not unlike he'd been when they first gave bright and shiny a chance after his divorce. For her part, she was enjoying the bright and shiny faux-honeymoon period, too, but hadn't forgotten how much work was still ahead of them, and hoped Derek was keeping that in mind, too.

The day after their date, Meredith had had lunch with Derek in the cafeteria, as promised. Ignoring the stares and whispers and not-so-inconspicuous glances thrown over shoulders in their direction, they'd agreed that with Derek leaving for a week, they could take the time until he came back to just _be_. Go with it. See what happened. They'd start tackling the difficult stuff, working through their problems, when he returned. With the pressure removed, their first day as an officially reunited couple went as flawlessly as Meredith could have hoped. The second day, Meredith thought, had been even better.

She'd been scheduled to work with Derek on Friday for weeks, and she privately suspected that he'd arranged that on purpose—to make sure that she was on his service the last day before his vacation. She wouldn't have minded even if they weren't back together, but considering that they _were_, Meredith was all the more thankful for Derek's foresight in planning her shifts. It wasn't that they overdid the public affection thing—just the opposite, really, since they were both determined to keep a firm line between home and work—but it was the closeness, the intimacy of working together, the skills Meredith learned and fine-tuned under Derek's guidance, the pride he took in her (there, Meredith knew, the pride was professional _and_ personal) as she developed into the surgeon he'd always believed she could be. They'd spent most of the day in an intricate, excruciatingly long spinal surgery to excise a Tarlov cyst pressing against their patient's sacrum. The woman had been referred to Derek after an MRI at Seattle Presbyterian had detected the abnormally large mass; Meredith knew that cysts large enough to cause symptoms were uncommon enough, but even more rare were ones large enough to necessitate surgery, so even though there had been little for her to do in the OR, she'd followed Derek's movements closely and tried to soak up every detail of the experience.

When they'd finally, _finally_ finished and Meredith had completed the final suture to close, they spoke to their patient's family and retired to Derek's office to wait for the page signaling that the woman had awoken in recovery. Meredith had immediately claimed Derek's couch for herself and stretched out, covering her face with a pillow in an effort to block out the offending light that threatened to exacerbate the hint of a migraine she could feel creeping into her brain. Without a word, Derek had flipped off the lights, and a moment later, she felt his fingers combing through her hair, gently tugging it loose from the elastic band that held it back in a ponytail. He'd whispered that he'd make a run to the cafeteria for lunch, and bring it back so they could eat together in his office, but before he'd left, he'd pressed a bottle of ibuprofen into her hand and laid a water bottle on her stomach. An hour later, between the medicine and the half of a sandwich she'd shared with Derek, the headache was held at bay, and Meredith had spent the rest of the afternoon monitoring their post-op patients while Derek had been in a series of meetings.

One of the other residents found Meredith just before six to relieve her. Meredith quickly ran down the list of Derek's patients and their statuses, and as soon as the other resident had begun her evening rounds, Meredith hurried to the residents' lounge to change. Her scrubs were discarded quickly, replaced by comfortable jeans and a sweater tugged hastily over her white button-front shirt, and a quick glance at her watch as she grabbed her purse from the back of her cubby assured her that she had enough time to visit Derek before she needed to leave for her therapy appointment.

Meredith was halfway to his office when she heard her name called from behind her. She stopped in her tracks and squeezed her eyes shut, as though it would make her invisible and undetectable from the owner of the irritatingly perky voice.

"Meredith!" Lexie said again breathlessly as her footsteps slowed and she caught up to Meredith's side. "I'm glad I found you. I wanted to ask you something."

"What?" Meredith replied. She couldn't imagine what her half-sister could possibly want with her, especially what could be worth cutting into her time with Derek, but Meredith reminded herself that she was supposed to be trying. She was supposed to be working on this sister thing and making an effort to come to terms with the reality that her father had other daughters and define the place they cold hold in her life. She could give Lexie a few moments—a chance. She could. She could try.

"Molly is coming home for Christmas with Laura," Lexie began, the words rushing from her mouth in a way that—if she'd look past the general annoyance that always seemed to be her first reaction to Lexie's presence—might make Meredith believe that uncontrollable, chronic nervous babbling had a genetic component. "Eric is deployed and his family is all in Texas, and she didn't want to take the baby all the way there herself—anyway, we were talking and we thought maybe we could do brunch while she's home."

Talking with the hands might be a genetic thing, too, Meredith noticed as Lexie gestured wildly, randomly with her hands as she continued, her voice growing weaker, shakier from lack of oxygen (because Lexie seemed just as compelled as Meredith to do this sort of soul-bearing, vulnerable speech-making in one breath.) "The three of us, and Laura. You have to see her now, Meredith, she's going to be walking soon, I swear—and Molly really wanted to see you at Thanksgiving, but of course she didn't, so we thought maybe this week sometime? What do you think?"

Meredith was left staring at her sister's hopeful face with a dumbfound expression painted across her own. She hadn't exactly thought about an answer while Lexie was talking, just sort of…expected Lexie to keep talking until she passed out from hypoxia, releasing Meredith from the obligation to reply. But no, she was still there, conscious and standing, and waiting for an answer. "I…um…" Meredith faltered.

Lexie's face fell slightly at what she perceived as Meredith's attempt to stall long enough to come up with an excuse. "I mean, I wouldn't expect you to meet us on Christmas or anything," she stammered, her pale cheeks flushing pink, "I know you have your friends or whatever—oh, Dr. Shepherd, I guess, I heard you two were back together, which is…great, I think? It is, right? You're happy about it?"

That was a question Meredith could answer without hesitation or begrudging, even if she _did_ still remember that Lexie had been the _other_ girl from the bar and _had_ been a little too friendly with Derek at the start of her internship for Meredith's comfort. "Yes," she nodded. "It's a good thing."

"Okay, so yeah," Lexie sighed in relief. "I understand if you want to spend Christmas with them, and we'll be with dad of course, and I know you don't really maybe want to see him, so we—Molly and me—we were thinking maybe the day after Christmas?"

"The day after Christmas," Meredith repeated, wondering if she _could_ stall long enough to figure a way out of this. She felt a dull ache resurrect in her forehead and tried not to grimace visibly at the pending return of her migraine. "Brunch?"

"Or lunch or dinner," Lexie suggested eagerly. "Coffee. Anything. We just—you're our sister, and we want to know you, and—you haven't seen Laura since she was little—" she paused and finally took a breath that seemed to imbibe her voice with an assertive authority Meredith had heard from Lexie only a few times before. "I know that this is weird for you. It's weird for us, too, but we're family, Meredith. And we're just asking for an hour or two and I think that really reasonable, especially—"

"Okay," Meredith said quickly, surprising herself as much, if not more than Lexie. She wasn't sure what had spurned the sudden acceptance of Lexie's invitation, unless it was that, for all Lexie shared Meredith's trait's, Lexie was very much her mother's daughter. Susan had been pushy and overbearing—but in a good way that Meredith had slowly begun to appreciate—and the steps that Lexie and Meredith had taken to slowly establish their relationship had largely been made when Lexie channeled her inner Susan and refused to back down, insisting that Meredith give her a foothold. "Okay," Meredith said again, more to confirm her answer to herself than to Lexie. "Um, yeah. Brunch is…okay. I have to work at two that day, but we can meet before, I guess. Just um—figure it out with Molly and let me know, and I'll…I'll be there."

"Really?" Lexie grinned. "Right, okay, great! I'll tell Molly—she's going to be so excited. Do you have anywhere you want to go, or—"

"No, not really," Meredith cut her off with a shake of her head; she'd agreed to go, but she wasn't about to help plan what she was certain would amount to nothing short of a torture session with the bright and shiny twins, the poster children of nuclear family functionality. "Look, Lexie, I need to go…I was on my way to find Derek and—"

"Oh!" Lexie cried. "I'm sorry, right—I should let you go then. I'll let you know—"

If Lexie said anything else, Meredith didn't notice. She felt her hands shaking as the realization of what she'd just committed herself to flooded her mind. What the hell was she doing? Meredith didn't do families, and now she'd agreed to meet her sisters—both of them—for _brunch_. On a _holiday_. Meredith didn't do brunches or holidays either. She'd thrown herself into deep, choppy, uncharted water, and she was fairly certain that she might find herself drowning again, because in this case, she didn't even know _how_ to swim. As she slipped down the hall that led to Derek's office, she forced her anxieties about the brunch from her thoughts and focused instead on Derek. She was down now to only about ten minutes with him, but he'd be able to calm her down, get her mind off of her family issues for a little while at least.

She jumped with a start when she reached out, but the door to Derek's office swung open before she could lay a hand on it. His blue eyes widened in surprise for the split-second it took for him to register that the unexpected form in the doorway was Meredith, and then a bright smile split his face. "Hey, you," he murmured happily. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Hi, yourself," Meredith smiled, scanning her eyes over him and taking in the fresh scrubs, the conspicuous absence of his lab coat, and the familiar ferryboat pattern covering his dark curls. "Are you going into surgery?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "One of Mark's patients had second thoughts about what shape she wanted her nose, so she cancelled her surgery. There was an opening, so my seven o'clock got moved up an hour. What about you? Are you headed out?"

"Mm," she rolled her eyes playfully. "Off to have my head shrunk."

"Mm," he hummed as he tucked her hair behind her ear and slid his hand into the thick waves. "You'll have lots to tell her."

"I saw her four days ago, Derek," Meredith reminded him dryly.

"Mm, but four days ago you didn't have a boyfriend," he pointed out, leaning forward to leave a quick peck on her forehead. "You do now."

"Right, there is that," Meredith acquiesced. She bit her lip hesitantly, "What time do you think your surgery will be over?"

"I'm not sure—ten, I hope," Derek replied, frowning slightly as thought lines creased his forehead. "Maybe longer."

"Are you coming over when you leave here?" she asked hopefully.

He raised an eyebrow and answered her with a question of his own. "Do you want me to?"

"You're leaving tomorrow morning," she replied, as though he could have forgotten, when they both knew that his pending vacation had weighed heavily on both their minds over the last few days. "I want to be able to tell you goodbye."

He smiled softly and nodded. "Okay. I'll come over if it's not too late when I finish here."

Meredith tossed her head, causing him to remove his hand from her hair. "No, not if," she argued. "Come over."

"Meredith, if there are complications—I don't want you waiting up—" Derek protested.

"You have a key," Meredith cut him off, dismissing his weak attempt as an excuse. Even if he _didn't_ still have they key he'd never returned when they'd broken up (not that she'd thought to ask him to give it back), he knew that she kept a spare taped under the swing on the porch. "Let yourself in and wake me up. I won't mind. I want you to come over so I can see you before you leave."

Derek seemed to accept his defeat, shaking his head at her with an incredulous laugh. "You're bossy, do you know that?"

"You might have told me once or twice," she smirked. "Whatever it takes to keep you in line."

"Yes ma'am," he murmured obediently. "I'll see you tonight, then. Do you want me to call when I'm on my way?"

"You don't have to," Meredith shrugged, trying (and, she was sure, failing miserably) not to smile _too_ broadly or betray just how badly she wanted to see him. No sense in seeming _too_ desperate, even though she'd probably crossed that line five minutes before. "Just show up."

"Okay," he agreed, leaning in and kissing her cheek softly. "Good luck at therapy," he added, dropping his voice to a whisper so only she could hear. The hall appeared empty, but they both knew that with the way even the most closely guarded secrets spread in the hospital, the walls must have ears.

"Thanks. Good luck in surgery," she replied. "I'll see you later."

He kissed her once more, on the forehead this time, and Meredith watched as he trotted down the hall and disappeared around the corner. By the time she caught up, walking at her own, slower pace with much less deliberate strides, she only heard the faint chime of the elevator as the doors slid closed and carried Derek away. She kept walking, and took the stairs on her way out of the hospital, wincing slightly at the biting cold as she exited through the automatic glass doors. She regretted parking so far away this morning, although it hadn't really been her fault. She hadn't been able to find a closer spot, and this—the frigid gusts that chilled her skin as she hurried across the lot—this was why. None of the staff, not even the health nuts like Derek, had been willing to walk a foot more than necessary since the cold snap had hit a week earlier.

When she reached her Jeep, she fumbled with her keys to unlock it, and slammed the door shut as soon as she'd scrambled inside. She exhaled slowly as she cranked the engine and turned the heat on, and watched her breath curl in front of her as she adjusted the vents to direct the slowly warming air toward her seat. She knew that she'd be halfway to her therapist's office by the time the car warmed up, but if she got even a few minutes' relief from the cold, she'd be happy. Well, happy about the heat, anyway, she amended, although that would just be compounded with the overwhelming happiness she'd had for the past few days. If anything, Meredith was almost dreading her therapy appointment for the first time since she'd been seeing Dr. Hadden; Meredith liked being happy, and she knew that Dr. Hadden wanted Meredith to be content and functional, but that meant making sure that she gave Meredith a reality check, and Meredith wasn't sure she wanted that just yet.

She knew. She _knew_ that she and Derek were far from perfect, but the last three or four days with him _had_ been almost flawless, and she wanted to hold onto that for just a little longer. Meredith had missed him during the breakup, but she hadn't realized quite _how_ much until she'd finally let her guard down and agreed to another chance. Now, for the past few days, she'd felt…almost like she had when they'd first started dating, before Addison, before any of the rest of it, and while she knew it didn't erase everything that had happened…it was nice not to dwell on it now, to take the time just to be _happy_ together, to remind herself how good things could be between them—how much better they would be when they'd worked out their problems.

Meredith knew his absence was going to be hard—now that they were finally, officially together again, she wanted him around. Not in a smothering sense, but it was comforting to know that he was a short drive away if she wanted him, needed him. When he'd been with Addison, she'd hated everything about it, but she remembered especially the sheer _ache_ she felt coming home and crawling into bed alone, how much she'd missed having him close, how much it hurt to work with him but not be able to touch him, not to be able to rely on him, because he wasn't _hers_. She wasn't sure if the ache would be lessened by the knowledge that they'd be separated only physically, not emotionally, but she _was_ certain that she wasn't going to enjoy finding out the answer. Realistically, she could survive a week without Derek; she'd more or less survived the last six weeks without him—but she worried just the same. If something were to happen during his trip—and given her track record with holidays and familes (what had she been _thinking_ agreeing to meet her half-sisters?), Meredith was almost _expecting_ something to go wrong—if something happened, Derek wouldn't be with her. She could call him, sure, and that would be a good thing, because that was his one rule—to tell him, to not shut him out—but it wouldn't be the same as having him _physically_ present. He couldn't touch her from thousands of miles away.

When she arrived at Dr. Hadden's office, the lobby was empty except for a middle-aged couple and their very sullen teenage daughter. It seemed odd that she automatically labeled them "middle-aged", Meredith thought, when a second glance at the couple suggested that they probably weren't very much older than Derek, and she'd never really considered him "middle-aged" at all. She teased him about being older of course, but it had never dawned on her until now that if things had worked out differently in his life, Derek could very easily have a child that age. Meredith recognized the steely defiance in the girl's eyes as an expression she herself had worn frequently during her adolescence; she couldn't imagine that she'd have been thrilled about mandatory therapy at that age either, but she couldn't help but wonder how things might have turned out differently if she'd done this sooner. Frustrating as her sessions could be, as much as she didn't always feel _comfortable_ confronting her most complicated issues and tackling her most profound anxieties head-on, she couldn't deny the good it was doing her. If nothing else—it had helped her take several major steps back to Derek, and forward to a future with him.

Meredith waited inside Dr. Hadden's office anxiously, curled up in the corner of her preferred couch with her feet pulled into her lap, and fidgeted anxiously to pass the time. There were new pictures on the bookshelf—a child in a soccer uniform that Meredith knew was Dr. Hadden's son, and another of the same boy that looked like a school yearbook photo. She wondered how Dr. Hadden managed, whether her son felt second-fiddle to the practice as Meredith had to Ellis's work, or if Dr. Hadden had somehow figured out the magic formula. She couldn't imagine how Dr. Hadden had time for a kid when she spent at least two evenings a week in her office until eight o'clock with Meredith, but there must be some way, some secret to having both. Derek wanted kids. Meredith didn't have a clue how she'd juggle potential kids with their jobs, but it was something else they'd have to figure out. She didn't know if she could handle the kid thing, but Derek wanted it, badly—and Meredith was sure that a week with his sisters' broods would do nothing but stoke that desire in him. That was one more thing they were going to have to work through, one more obstacle to making it work, one more issue to address—but not now, she reminded herself. There was time for that, lots of time. She didn't have to know all the answers now; they'd figure out the answers later, after he came home, and they'd do it together—

"Must be intense."

Dr. Hadden's voice startled Meredith, causing her to flinch as her head snapped involuntarily in the therapist's direction. "What?" she stammered.

"Whatever's on your mind," Dr. Hadden said, smiling warmly as she closed the office door and crossed the room to settle in her own favorite chair. "You look like you're very focused, very intense. What are you thinking about?"

Derek. Intense. _It's intense, this thing I have. For ferryboats, I mean._ Meredith couldn't help laughing. "Derek," she admitted.

"Ah, it _is_ intense then," Dr. Hadden nodded knowingly. "We talked last week about him—have there been new developments you'd like to share?"

A pleased smile stretched across Meredith's face, pulling at muscles she hadn't used in far too long, but planned to exercise much more often; she had a feeling Derek would be responsible for putting plenty of smiles on her face in the days and weeks to come. "We're um…we agreed to try again," Meredith replied. "We made rules and talked about what we needed to make this work, and we're going to try. We're taking it slow, but we are back together."

"Okay then," Dr. Hadden said, skillfully avoiding any phrasing that might suggest support _or _disapproval of Meredith's decision—simply acceptance. "How is it going so far?"

"Good," Meredith sighed. "I mean, we're just kind of…together right now, you know? He's going home to see his family tomorrow and he'll be gone a week, and I just…I didn't want things to be weird when he left. We decided to start working through things when he comes back."

"Have you thought about how you're going to do that? How you're going to start dealing with the issues in your relationship?" Dr. Hadden asked.

Meredith frowned slightly. She wasn't sure if this was a trick question, because the obvious answer seemed too…well, obvious. "Talking?" she offered weakly. "Derek and I don't talk, not like we should. _I _don't talk. He tries sometimes and I don't let him, but he's not perfect either. There was that whole secret wife thing, and then the nurse," she added bitterly. "We're not so good at the communicating."

"Why do you think that is?" Dr. Hadden replied.

Meredith bit her lip as she tried to find the best way to articulate her answer. She wasn't sure she even _knew_ what to say. "I don't trust easily," she admitted. She didn't take it well when Derek accused her of it, but she knew it was true. "I didn't have really anyone growing up, so…I don't know, I guess I just don't expect to have anyone now. I'm so used to it just being me, and having to take care of myself…I don't let people in, and that's hard for Derek. He wants me to let him in, and I just…don't. I don't know how."

Dr. Hadden didn't speak for several moments as she scribbled in her notebook. Meredith wondered what that book contained, what sorts of things the therapist must write about her. _Patient has profound issues – may be beyond my help. Needs medication. Possible shock therapy._ Meredith laughed at the thought, and shook her head apologetically when Dr. Hadden looked up sharply. "I um…I asked Derek if he'd come here with me sometime," Meredith said suddenly in an attempt to cover her paranoid ponderings. "To see you. Therapy. Couples therapy, I guess. I probably should have asked if that was okay with you first. But I just thought—it could help. Because Derek? He's done the committed relationship thing, but he's divorced, so obviously he isn't perfect at it, so we could both use the help. And we want this. We want it to work. So I thought—and Derek agreed—maybe you could help."

"I think that could be beneficial," Dr. Hadden nodded in agreement. "Are you looking to replace one our weekly appointments with a joint session, or add a third meeting to the week?"

"I don't know that we want it to be a recurring thing," Meredith shook her head. "With our schedules—it's hard enough getting _me_ here, and to factor Derek's shifts in, too? We were thinking that maybe we could just come together once or twice, so you could help us get started, and then we'd work on it ourselves…"

"And you'd still come see me for your regular sessions?" Dr. Hadden said, more of a command than a question. Meredith nodded her assent quickly. "Good. While we're talking about scheduling, let's discuss arranging your next appointments. How do you feel about taking a week off?"

"Seriously?" Meredith replied, her eyes widening in surprise. Her twice-a-week sessions with the therapist had started to feel like part of her normal routine over the past few weeks; the prospect of a free week was at once unsettling and liberating.

"With the holidays over the next week," Dr. Hadden explained, "I'd like to be able to spend some time with my family. I'll still be seeing patients, but I think you'll do fine without seeing me for a week, if you'd like a break, unless you feel you _need _to see me."

"No, that's okay," Meredith assured her. "I get it, the holiday with the family thing. Well, I don't get it at all actually, but I know that for most people, the holiday and family thing is what you do. Derek—he's a holiday and family person. He's doing the thing."

Dr. Hadden raised an eyebrow in question. "And how do you feel about that?"

"What do you mean?" Meredith replied warily. She wasn't sure what the therapist was trying to get at—how was she _supposed_ to feel? Before Dr. Hadden could clarify, Meredith attempted an answer, "I'm glad he's seeing his family. He hasn't been home in almost two years, and I think it'll be good for him. He feels guilty that we won't be together, but I'll be fine. I never had the family and holiday thing, so I can't really miss it." Missing Derek, however, was a different story, and she was _already_ feeling the ache of his absence.

"Really?" Dr. Hadden replied skeptically. "It doesn't bother you at all that Derek is leaving you for the holidays?"

Meredith winced, certain that the other woman's diction had been intentional, designed to provoke a reaction from Meredith, startle her into revealing some hidden anxiety. "He needs to be with his family," she repeated to convince herself as much as Dr. Hadden. "Of course I'd like it if he were with me, but I can't take him from his family. My roommate will do something for Christmas, and I've got enough on the family end of things to keep my mind off Derek—"

"You do?" Dr. Hadden interrupted. "Would you care to elaborate?"

"Lexie," Meredith sighed, and she explained how, in her haste to get away from her half-sister earlier, she'd agreed to a meeting with_ both_ sisters, and the baby. "I don't know what I was thinking," she confessed.

For the remainder of her appointment, she and Dr. Hadden tried to figure out exactly what Meredith had been thinking when she accepted Lexie's invitation, occasionally allowing the conversation to drift toward Ellis or Thatcher or Derek. When the hour expired, Meredith set an appointment for the first week of January, and left feeling, if possible, more uncertain than she'd been when she arrived. It was a far cry from her last appointment, when she'd left completely sure about her decision to try again with Derek, anxious and eager for the next few days. With her pending brunch with the _other_ Grey girls weighing heavily on her mind, she found it difficult to feel anything but dread. She simply had no idea how to deal with two women who expected her to live up to whatever big-sister fantasy they'd held for twenty-something years, when she still struggled to accept the reality of their existence. Molly and Lexie had had a lifetime to imagine what it would be like to meet their sister; Meredith had had her siblinghood thrust upon her in one tactless, blunt comment from Cristina, just half an hour before Molly entered her world. She'd slowly been adjusting to Lexie, but this was something different, completely overwhelming and daunting, and Meredith doubted that she'd feel any better even if she'd spent the rest of the night talking it out in therapy. She could probably cancel, if she had to, but somehow, she felt she shouldn't; it would seem like a setback in her therapy and her progress toward bright, shiny, and functional, and Meredith didn't want any more delays. She'd deal with it, somehow, survive it, somehow. At the moment, the only thing that even partially quelled her anxiety was the promise of seeing Derek in a few hours.

When she arrived home, she was pleased to see that Izzie's car was missing from the driveway; she should probably feel a little guilty for being happy that Izzie wasn't home, but after her day at work and the knowledge that Derek was mere hours away from flying across the country, the last thing Meredith wanted to deal with was Izzie's perkiness. Alex was home, but apart from a half-empty glass of milk on the kitchen counter, Meredith would have never known it. Alex had proved to be an excellent roommate, she thought, unless she counted his fling with Lexie against him. He didn't judge, he didn't usually leave messes, and he kept to himself, minded his own business. Completely unlike Izzie and her insistence on inserting herself into every aspect of her friends' personal lives, bearing cupcakes and muffins as though that made the intrusion more forgivable. Then again, Meredith conceded as she spotted a freshly-baked chocolate cake cooling under a glass dome, Izzie's generosity with her baking skills did go a long way to redeem her nosiness.

Meredith prepared a dinner of leftover pizza from the fridge and a generous slice of Izzie's cake, and smirked when she pictured the way Derek's lip would curl and his nose wrinkle in distaste if he knew what she were eating. She'd tell him later, just to get the reaction from him. She'd tell him about her dinner and her day and make him tell her more about his family, and she decided as she filled a glass with ice and water (he'd be proud of her for that, at least) that she'd tell him about Lexie and Molly, too. It was new, this idea of telling him things, and she was almost surprised at how excited she was at the prospect. It didn't matter that learning to talk to him was going to be one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do—she'd figure it out somehow, and he'd help her, and she still had therapy, and it was all going to be worth it. In the end, when therapy had done its job and she'd learned to really, really trust Derek and he'd learned to really, really trust her, they'd be happy and functional and she'd finally be able to put dark and twisty Meredith behind her for good. It was a process, but she was confident that this time, they'd make it.

She was determined to wait up for Derek, and kept herself busy by cleaning up the kitchen, including pouring out the milk that Alex hadn't come back to finish in the hour she'd been home. When the kitchen counters were clear and the dishwasher loaded and started, Meredith retreated to the den and flipped through dozens of channels in search of something that might grab her interest. Alex paid the cable bill—he was the reason they had the expanded package with more sports channels than Meredith could ever see a reason for—and Meredith decided that if it were up to her, she'd never waste the money to have 300 channels and nothing worth watching. She finally settled on a documentary promising to showcase "medical mysteries", but in the first five minutes, Meredith had already successfully diagnosed the case, and it lost its appeal after that. Still, she sat through it if for no other reason that it passed the time until Derek's shift would end.

The confirmation of her correct diagnosis came at ten, and with it, so did the return of the anxious feeling in Meredith's stomach. He'd thought his surgery should be over at ten, so he should be arriving anytime in the next half-hour, if all had gone as planned.

The television murmured in the background, but Meredith hardly paid attention to it. After several minutes, she yawned sleepily and glanced at her watch. Ten-thirty. He should at least be out of surgery now. With great effort, she rose from the couch and retrieved her cell phone from the kitchen, leaning against the counter as she dialed Derek's number. It rang three, four times before his voicemail picked up.

"Hey, it's me," she said softly, surprised to hear how tried her voice sounded. "I'm guessing you're still in surgery; I hope everything is okay. I know I said you didn't have to, but if you want to, call when you're on you're way. I'll see you soon."

She flipped the phone shut and tucked it into her pocket and returned to the couch. With a sigh, she reached for the remote to turn up the volume on an another episode of the medical program. If nothing else, she'd hone her diagnostic skills until Derek came home. Her eyes grew heavier with each passing minute, and she could barely hold them open when eleven o'clock arrived without Derek.

At eleven-thirty, Meredith conceded defeat in the battle to stay awake and wait for Derek, and reluctantly trudged upstairs to her bedroom. She'd hoped that Derek's surgery would go smoothly and he'd have left the hospital by now, but she understood how easily complications could arise. He had a key; he could let himself in when he arrived, just like they'd agreed. She closed her bedroom door and shivered as she started to undress, and quickly found a long-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms to replace her street clothes. Her blankets lay tangled and crumpled in the middle of the bed—she hadn't bothered to make the bed on her way to the hospital that morning—and she straightened them with one hand as the other maneuvered the toothbrush in her mouth.

After returning her toothbrush to the cup by her bathroom sink, Meredith took her phone from the pocket of her discarded jeans and laid it on the nightstand on Derek's side of the bed. Even though he hadn't spent the night in her bed in six months, she still thought of it as his place. In his absence, she'd often found herself sleeping in his spot, rather than on the side she favored when he was next to her. Meredith turned off the bedside lamp as she slipped underneath the heavy comforter, and tossed for a few moments before settling her head against the plush pillow that Derek used, even though it had lost his scent months ago after a trip through the washing machine. Down the hall, Meredith could hear the faint buzz of the television in Alex's room, but her fatigue was stronger than the distraction and she quickly felt herself drifting off to sleep. She sighed into the pillow and allowed her eyes to close and her thoughts to blur as sleep crept in to claim her.

Meredith was so far gone that she didn't recognize the first ring of her phone. The second one caused her to open her eyes, blinking slowly in confusion as she focused on the blue light flashing from the nightstand. On the third ring, her hand shot out and seized the phone, flipping it open as she brought it to her ear.

"Derek?" she answered, the hope strangled by the hoarseness of her voice.

"Hey," he replied, sounding just as tired as she was. "I just got your message, and I wanted to call--I'm about to go into emergency surgery. Our patient from this morning, with the Tarlov cyst? She's leaking CSF and I've got to go in and place a patch. I don't think I'm going to make it over tonight, and I didn't want you to think I was just not showing up…"

"No!" Meredith protested. "Derek, no. I told you, it doesn't matter what time—"

"Meredith, it could be two in the morning—" Derek argued.

"I don't care," Meredith replied petulantly. "You promised, Derek."

"That was before, Meredith," Derek sighed wearily. "I thought I'd be out of here by now, and you have to work tomorrow."

Meredith sat up and ran one hand backward through her hair in exasperation. "Derek, _please_."

"I can't promise, Meredith," he said apologetically. "I'm sorry. I don't have time to argue with you; I've got to go."

"Derek—" Meredith cried. She knew how pathetic she must sound, and she hated him a little for making her beg, but she was tired, and she'd waited up for him, damn it. She _wanted _to see him.

Derek groaned. "I'll try, Meredith, but I'm not promising," he said softly. "I'll try, but don't expect me."

She felt a sudden stinging in the corners of her eyes and lifted her gaze to the ceiling in a futile effort to stop the tears from falling. "Derek, please."

When he spoke again, she knew that he could tell she was crying. "Meredith, please don't do this to me," he pleaded. "I _have_ to go into surgery. I'll call tomorrow before I get on the plane; I promise that much."

"Fine," she muttered, in a tone that made it very clear to him that things were definitely _not _fine. She closed the phone before he could respond and dropped it into her lap. She rubbed her hands over her face, wiping away the few tears that fell before she'd reestablished her control over them, and took a deep breath. This wasn't fair; she understood that he had surgery—that wasn't the problem. He was supposed to come over _after_, so she could see him before his flight left. Her shift wasn't until the next afternoon, and even if he called, it wouldn't be the same. Why couldn't he understand that? She didn't want a phone call from him; she wanted him here, with her. She'd _needed_ him tonight, and he'd promised her…she'd expected him and planned for him, and now he was bailing on her. Sure, he'd at least called first, but even that was little consolation _now_. She'd been counting on being able to see him again before she _couldn't_ see him for a week, and now…now he was leaving her after a fight, albeit a small one, and that was _never_ a good thing.

She was mad at him—maybe not so much _mad_ as hurt and disappointed—and the turbulent emotions kept her from falling back to sleep immediately, which only made her angrier. Finally, after nearly an hour of thrashing, tossing, and turning, she managed to sink into a fitful sleep. By the time the clock on her nightstand flashed two A.M. in its red numerals, she was, if not blissfully, at least unaware of anything around her. Half an hour later, she didn't hear the front door open or the jingle of keys as the door squeaked shut. She didn't hear the footsteps on the creaking stairs or register their progression down the hall to her bedroom, where they stopped just outside her door. She didn't react to the beam of light that temporarily illuminated her dark room as the door opened to allow a figure to pass through, and when the door shut, a little louder than expected, she didn't even flinch.

When the mattress sank under the weight of a second body, Meredith instinctively rolled on her side in the direction the bed had shifted. She stirred slightly at the sensation of a warm hand on her forehead, gently smoothing her hair off her face, and whimpered softly as lips found her cheek and the rough bristles of a five o'clock shadow scratched her skin.

"Meredith," the whisper of her name was accompanied by a hand, heavy on her shoulder, slowly sliding down her arm to entwine their fingers. "Mere…"

The touches and murmurs dragged her from her sleep, and she inhaled deeply as her eyes fluttered open. She blinked several times in rapid succession before she focused on the blue eyes smiling down at her. "Hey," she whispered, a sleepy smile curling her lips. "You came."

"I did," Derek nodded. "I couldn't not show up, not when you were begging like that. I felt like a jerk."

Meredith couldn't disagree with him. "You were _being_ a jerk." He'd won points for showing up, but it didn't mean that she wasn't still mad at him.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I was—I don't know," he sighed with a shake of his head. "I didn't want you waiting up for me; I know you have a long shift tomorrow and you weren't feeling well earlier today—I just—"

"I wanted you," Meredith said bluntly. "I don't care about sleeping, Derek. I'm a second-year resident. I know how to function on very little sleep."

"I know," Derek replied. He readjusted his position on the bed, stretching out next to her and propping himself up on his left elbow. "I wanted to see you, too, but I thought—I thought I was doing the right thing by calling to tell you I wouldn't make it, so you wouldn't be up worrying. But you were upset, and I couldn't do it. When we made rules, I promised to show up, and this was the first thing you'd asked from me—I couldn't let you down. I couldn't go to New York knowing that I'd made you cry and…I'm here now."

"Mm," Meredith agreed, turning to her side to face him. "You are." She lifted herself a few inches from the bed to kiss his cheek before collapsing again next to him. She nuzzled her face against his chest and yawned sleepily.

"That's it?" Derek laughed incredulously and began to comb his fingers through her hair. "I came over at two-thirty in the morning so you could kiss my cheek and go back to sleep?"

"You could lie down with me," Meredith suggested. "Sleep."

Derek's fingers stopped abruptly mid-way through the length of her hair. "You want me to stay the night?" he asked slowly.

"Mm," Meredith nodded. Her heart sped up at the thought; Derek hadn't spent the night in her bed in months. Not once during the lifespan of their sex-and-mockery agreement had she caved and allowed him to stay, no matter how much he'd begged. And now, she was surprised equally by the offer she'd made to him and how badly she wanted him to accept it. It felt warm and safe and familiar in all the right ways to have him next to her, and she didn't want him to leave. If she had to deal with the next week, she wanted at least the next few hours.

"What happened to no sleepovers?" Derek replied hesitantly, as though he were afraid Meredith was testing him, to see if he'd hold back from what he so obviously wanted, too. "We made rules, Meredith. Two days ago—are we breaking them already?"

"Not breaking," Meredith answered. "_Bending_ maybe. There are loopholes to the rules."

"No one told _me_ that," Derek said with mock indignation.

"Well, if I told you about all of them, you'd exploit them," Meredith grinned. "This one is only valid because you're leaving me for a week."

Derek frowned and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm not leaving _you_, you know," he murmured.

Meredith took a few moments to respond. She _should_ know. She was supposed to know. But ever since she'd been aware of his trip, ever since the memorial event for her mother, she'd struggled to repress the feeling that he _was_ leaving her, abandoning her again. She didn't really know who Derek had been before he came to Seattle, and it terrified her that a week back home might make him reconsider his life in Seattle, his life with her. He might realize that he missed his family and his old life, might decide to stay. The part of her that recognized that Derek was in her bed, and very happily so, reprimanded her for such silly insecurities, but the part of her that maintained a constant lookout for anything that might hurt her made it hard to trust what she knew—that Derek loved her, that he was happy with her, eager for their second chance, and absolutely not leaving her. "I know," she said finally. "But you are leaving."

As though he'd read her mind, Derek pulled her into a reassuring embrace. "I'm coming back," he promised.

"I know," Meredith replied. "But right now you're staying here."

"Whatever you say, Meredith," Derek agreed. He released his hold on her and eased off the bed, only for her to follow his movements with a confused expression. "Just let me get changed, and I'll come to bed," he explained. "I can't sleep in these clothes; they're all I have for the plane tomorrow."

"You have some clothes in your drawer," Meredith offered. "A couple of shirts, I think." As she moved over to make room for him, she suddenly second-guessed whether asking Derek to stay over had been a good idea; it hadn't been her plan, initially. She'd figured that he would come over for a few hours and then go home to sleep, and it wasn't until he'd woken her up just now that she'd decided that he could stay with her. It had seemed like an ideal plan, in the two seconds she'd had to think before blurting it out—it was a long way back to the trailer, and he'd have to wake up early in the morning to catch the ferry back and make it to the airport, and there was the added bonus of him curled up next to her. But now, watching him systematically undress and lay his clothes across the chair, slowly peeling off layer after later—this was starting to seem like a very dangerous idea.

She was absolutely not accustomed to going to bed with him fully dressed; it had _happened_, but it was rare. But tonight—tonight there could be no sex, no matter how much Meredith thought she wanted him to remove the final layer of clothing covering his body. Not thought. Did. She did want him, but she couldn't. Out of the question.

"You're sure that it's okay for me to stay?" Derek asked as he padded across the floor and pulled back the blankets. She nodded, afraid of what embarrassing thoughts might spill out if she opened her mouth. He eased into bed next to her and leaned over her, bringing his face closer to hers; before he could kiss her, she turned her head and brushed her lips against his cheek. She felt him release a disappointed sigh into her hair before he collapsed against the pillows.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, scooting closer to him in hope that he'd accept cuddling instead of kissing. She felt awful for not letting him _really_ kiss her; as sweet as the pecks to her cheek and forehead were, it was near-torture for _both_ of them when they were the _only_ kisses being given. She was sure that he thought she was holding out because she was still angry with him, somehow insecure about kissing him after Rose, making him pay for his indiscretion. It wasn't. She _wanted_ to kiss him, and if things had gone differently tonight, she might have let him, but not now. Not with him in her bed and not quite fully dressed and dirty things already running through her head. If she'd let him kiss her tonight, she didn't trust herself to stop, and _that_ was more than she was ready for.

"It's okay," he assured her, and as his arms circled around her waist and drew her tight against him, she believed him. She settled her head on his chest, and his arm held her to his side, his fingers splayed possessively across her hip. She could feel his heartbeat through the thin material of his shirt and sighed happily as she closed her eyes and let her breathing fall into synch with the rise and fall of Derek's chest.

Derek brought his free hand to her face, threading his fingers into her hair and brushing his thumb along her cheekbone, slowly soothing her to sleep. After a few minutes, she was barely aware of even her own hand sliding up Derek's chest and her fingers twisting in the curls at the nape of his neck. With Derek's warmth and scent surrounding her, Meredith's anger over his nearly-broken promise quickly ebbed, leaving her filled instead with something much more like peace and contentment.

She slept soundly in his embrace for the next four hours, until a persistent beeping ripped her from a very nice dream that—though she wouldn't remember much upon waking—she was fairly certain did not involve Derek leaving her bed. She was still half asleep when her body was jostled by Derek's sudden, violent slap at the nightstand and subsequent fumbling for his phone. She felt his arm tighten around her as soon as he'd silenced the alarm, and she mumbled something unintelligible into his shirt as she buried her face against him again. Derek's breath caught in his chest and for several minutes, he didn't dare to move. Once he thought she was asleep again, he cradled her head in his left hand and supported her back with his right as he slowly, gingerly rolled over and repositioned her on the pillow.

She registered the sudden absence of his body next to hers, and Meredith stirred awake again, peering at him through half-closed eyes. "Mm, what are you doing?" she grumbled.

"Shh, go back to sleep," he whispered, smoothing her hair back and kissing her cheek; she crinkled her nose in discomfort as his scruffy face scratched against her, worse than even a few hours earlier. "I have to go to the airport. I'll call you when I land in New York."

"No—" she protested weakly, twisting to one side to push herself into a sitting position.

"Mere, I have to go," Derek replied gently. "I have a plane to catch."

"I'll come with you," Meredith shook her head and rubbed at her eyes sleepily. Six hours was more sleep than she often got, but she still felt tired—maybe it wasn't fatigue so much as dread of what she was waking up to do. "I'll take you to the airport. You can leave your car here while you're gone."

"Are you going to come pick me up next weekend when I get back?" Derek replied skeptically.

"Yeah, fine," Meredith agreed. The room was just starting to come into focus, Derek's face emerging in the darkness, and she couldn't remember what her schedule for next weekend looked like, but she didn't care. She just knew that she wasn't ready for him to leave her yet.

"Okay," Derek nodded and pressed another kiss to her forehead. "I'm going to go get a quick shower, okay? You can sleep a few more minutes."

"I'll get up," Meredith insisted, throwing the blankets covering her lap aside and swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. "I'll go start coffee. Do you want something to eat?"

"Mm, do I want to eat or do I want to get food poisoning?" he teased.

She thought about hitting him for that, but the thought alone wasn't motivation to actually expend the energy to lift her hand. She settled for glaring at him instead. "I hate you a little bit."

"No, you don't," Derek challenged, returning her scowl with a playful grin. "If you want to make a few pieces of toast, we can eat on the way to the airport."

"Toast?" Meredith repeated distastefully. "That's boring."

"Well, we can't have leftover pizza every morning," Derek shrugged. He laughed when that earned him another dirty look from Meredith. "Seriously, I don't want too much on my stomach during takeoff."

"You get airsick?" She didn't know why she was surprised by that; maybe it was because she'd never seen Derek sick, or even remotely under-the-weather. She'd seen him upset, yes. Mopey, broody, but never actually _physically_ unwell. The closest had probably been the days immediately following her drowning, which were without question the most unsteady she'd ever seen him.

"Sometimes," he admitted. "Is that the sort of thing you meant when you said you wanted to know everything about me?"

"Not exactly," Meredith laughed. "But I'll take it."

"Okay then," Derek nodded. "I'll be downstairs in a few minutes." He gathered his clothes and disappeared across the hall into the bathroom.

Meredith waited a few moments longer until she heard the hiss of the shower before she hauled herself out of bed and found clean clothes. Once she'd dressed, she crept down the hallway and navigated the stairs in the dark, only turning on the lights once she'd reached the hallway. She was mildly shocked that Derek trusted her to make toast; her lack of even rudimentary skills in the kitchen was one of his favorite sources for mockery material. Unfortunately, she was also the first to admit that she wasn't immune to burning toast, and with her luck, she'd turn it into charcoal this morning. It would be perfect—to remind Derek exactly how he'd be eating if he stayed with her and expected her to feed him (occasionally, because they both knew Derek did the cooking and—mostly—liked it that way), and then send him home to his mother, whom she envisioned as something of a cross between Martha Stewart and Julia Child. That would _certainly_ encourage him to come back to her after his vacation.

She watched the toast closely and was pleased with herself when she remembered to fish it from the toaster before the edges turned black. Derek made his way downstairs just as the coffee finished brewing and grabbed a piece of toast from the paper towel Meredith had wrapped them in. Meredith took two insulated mugs from the cabinet and filled them both before snapping on their lids and offering one to Derek.

"Ready?" he asked as he accepted the mug and took a sip, washing down his first bite of toast. "I'll drive, since my bags are in my car, and you can bring it back here after I leave."

"You're going to let me drive your car?" Meredith raised an eyebrow and grabbed her purse as she followed him out of the kitchen, her own coffee clutched tightly in her hand. "What did I do to earn that?"

"Consider it your Christmas gift," Derek turned toward her with a grin as he backed out of the front door, propping it open for her with his shoulder. "Or a parting gift. Whichever you prefer."

Meredith paused to lock the front door, then hurried down the walk to Derek's car. She wasn't at all surprised that the skies were a dull gray and a light drizzle dotted the windshield as they pulled out of the driveway—it _was_ Seattle, after all, but she'd expect nothing less than rain on the day Derek was leaving. Her mouth went dry and she averted her eyes out the window; she was glad that she'd only eaten half a piece of toast while Derek was in the shower. She felt sick.

"What's wrong, Mere?" Derek asked softly.

She turned back to him and shook her head with a weak smile. "Nothing. I'm okay."

"Meredith…" he replied with a warning tone. "You're not supposed to shut me out, remember? Something's wrong."

She sighed reluctantly. She owed him—she _had_ promised, agreed to his rule—even if he _was_ being ridiculously dense if he couldn't figure out on his own that she was upset about him leaving. He'd shown up for her, and now it was her turn, but she couldn't tell him. It would be selfish of her to tell him now, on the way to the airport, because he'd feel guilty and then his visit to his family would be tainted. He needed them, and they needed him. She couldn't let him leave worried about her, even if it was quite possible that she needed him even more. Derek wasn't the only one dealing with family over the holidays, but at least he _knew_ his family.

"Did I tell you—no, I didn't, did I?" she realized suddenly. She'd spent hours thinking about it, and then he'd called and nearly cancelled, and when he'd finally shown up, she'd been so relieved and exhausted that she'd neglected to tell him about Lexie's invitation. "I forgot to tell you last night."

"About what?" he replied, glancing at her with a quizzical expression.

"The very stupid thing I did," she answered hesitantly. She was glad they'd arrived at a stop light, because Derek's head snapped in her direction immediately and he braked a little too hard, tipping her forward with a jolt.

"No," Derek's voice was clipped, short, and he eyed her warily. "This isn't a very stupid thing like the very bad thing with George, is it?"

"Derek!" she cried. "No, of course not! But it was stupid. Incredibly stupid."

"What did you do?" Derek asked, still sounding uncertain as to whether he actually wanted to know.

"I…told Lexie I'd have brunch with her and Molly next week," Meredith admitted in one hurried breath.

"Seriously?" Derek laughed. His eyes lit up as a bright smile spread across his features.

"Why are you grinning?" she asked indignantly.

"Because it's not stupid. It's good," he assured her. "It's very good."

"It's _brunch_, Derek," Meredith placed special emphasis on the word to stress her disgust. "I don't do brunches. I don't do _sisters_."

"Sisters might be good for you," he replied thoughtfully. "I think it's great. I'm proud of you."

Meredith's heart skipped a beat; he was proud of her. She wasn't used to making people proud. "You know, the last time you told me I deserved a family…that didn't work out so well," she reminded him skeptically.

"It might have," he replied softly. "If Susan…"

"Yeah," Meredith cut him off abruptly. She was all too aware that Susan had been the bridge that connected her to her father—maybe would have even helped forge a relationship with her sisters. Now, Susan was gone, and the bridge she'd built was burned. Lexie might have forgiven her, but given the inebriated nature of his apology, Meredith couldn't be sure that Thatcher had granted the same reprieve. For her part, Meredith hadn't yet forgotten the sting of his slap. "But last time, when they came over for dinner, I had you. Who's going to be my wingman this time?"

"Mm," Derek smiled. "You'll be fine. Lexie seems eager to please, I doubt she'll do anything offensive…"

"Pushy, maybe," Meredith corrected, even though she was reluctant to allow even that light an adjective. "And Molly—I've only met her a few times—and the baby—"

"The baby's the easy part. You're good with kids," Derek replied confidently. When she didn't respond immediately, he glanced over to see her skeptical frown and laughed. "You are. I've seen you with patients. And I know you sneak up to the maternity wing—"

"What did you do, hire a surveillance team to follow me?" Meredith demanded.

"No, I just know you," he shook his head. "Seriously, Meredith. It'll be fine. Call me if you panic, but definitely call me after to tell me how flawlessly it went."

"I'll call when I wreck it," she muttered darkly.

"Stop," he said firmly. They'd reached another red light, and he focused his attention on her with an intense stare that almost commanded her to meet his eyes and believe him. "You're not going to wreck it. You don't wreck anything. Your sisters want to know you, and you should know your sisters, even if you think you don't want to."

"And what makes you the authority?" she asked, setting her jaw stubbornly.

"I have _four_ sisters," Derek replied. "That trumps your _two_ sisters and establishes me as the authority on siblings in this relationship."

"Does it?" Meredith argued. "I don't think it counts if we're talking about siblings I wasn't raised with and didn't know existed until eight months ago."

"No, it counts," he insisted. "I say so."

"Oh, you say so," Meredith rolled her eyes. "Well, _that _settles it."

"Glad you're finally seeing reason," Derek grinned. He seized her left hand in his right quickly, as though he were afraid she'd hit him if he didn't otherwise occupy her hand first.

She wouldn't have. He'd done exactly what she'd expected he would, and made her feel better about her decision to meet her sisters. She'd be more comfortable if he weren't going to be across the country on the day of the brunch in case something _did _go wrong, but maybe he was right. Maybe everything would work out. Maybe her sisters were more like Susan than Thatcher. _Maybe_ she'd have a good time, and maybe they'd get along. _Maybe_ she'd actually survive Derek being gone, but for now, she was determined to seize every second she could before he boarded his plane.

It was for that reason that when they arrived at the airport, Meredith accompanied Derek inside and through the line to check his larger suitcase, and then walked with him to the security checkpoint. When they reached the line for security, Meredith felt Derek squeeze her hand reassuringly, and she looked up to meet his gaze. He looked as reluctant to pass through security as she felt to let him, so she forced a small smile.

"So your flight leaves at 9:00," she said. "And you'll be in New York…"

"Around seven tonight, New York time," Derek finished. "Four, here. I have a stop in Chicago, so as long as there are no delays with the connecting flight, I should be through baggage claim around seven-thirty or so. I'll call you then, or I can wait until I'm safely locked away in the spare bedroom at Kathy's place. Whichever you want."

"Whenever," Meredith shook her head. "Both. Just call."

"I will," he promised. He dropped his carry-on to the floor between their feet and wrapped her in a tight embrace.

She dug her nails into his shoulders and took a deep breath to harness her emotions. "Derek," she said softly after he'd held onto her a few moments longer than she thought qualified as appropriate public affection. "You have to let go. You're going to miss your plane."

He didn't release his hold on her, and if anything, pulled her a little closer. "Get on the plane with me," he murmured.

"What?" she yelped and pulled back from him, eyes wide and panicked. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Come on, Meredith," he said eagerly. "We can still have our first Christmas together. There are plenty of seats left on the plane, and I'll pay your way. We'll call Richard from the gate and tell him you're going with me. He owes me."

"No—Derek—" she stammered, desperately searching for a reason that sounded vaguely plausible. "Even if—I don't have clothes, and besides—"

"I'll buy you new clothes when we get to New York," Derek shrugged.

"Derek. I'm not ready," she said softly, almost regretfully, because truthfully—she'd like nothing more than to have Derek with her for the holiday, but not if it meant his entire family. "We've been back together a few days. I'm not ready to meet your family. I'm sorry."

"I know," he sighed, and she suspected then that he'd never actually expected her to agree. "Okay, then. Tell me not to get on the plane. If you tell me not to, I'll stay here with you."

It took all she had to shake her head insistently. "Derek, no—you need to see your family. They're important to you, and you need them, and they're looking forward to seeing you—think about your mother, Derek. Think about how excited she's going to be to see you—you can't take that from her. Not for me. I'll be here when you get back."

"Okay," he nodded in agreement. "You're right."

"Of course I am," she attempted a playful laugh, but it was becoming harder to joke with him when each second brought them closer to him leaving.

He didn't miss her growing distress. "I'll call. I promise," he vowed, for no less than the fifth time that morning.

She nodded, and he reached down to pick up his carry-on. This was it. He was going. He was getting on the plane, he was leaving, and—

"Wait," she said suddenly. She placed a hand on his chest and crushed her lips hard against his cheek once, twice, and this time, she didn't care that he _still_ hadn't shaved for her. "Just in case the plane goes down or something."

"That's comforting," he replied dryly. "If this is potentially our last kiss, shouldn't you let me kiss you on the mouth?"

"No," she shook her head quickly. She didn't want him to go, but she needed him to go soon, before she completely fell apart. "I have to leave you wanting something. Make sure you come back."

He smiled at her attempt to flirt with him, but she could tell in his eyes that he saw through her. He always did. "I'm coming back, Meredith."

"Then you'll have something to look forward to," she nodded and forced a smile. "Go. Get on your plane. Call when you get there, have fun, do your family thing. Tell your mother I want a picture of you in the reindeer sweater."

He grinned. "Only if I get to see the pink hair pictures."

"Show me yours and I'll show you mine," she shrugged.

Derek laughed and pulled her into his arms again. He buried his face in her hair and rubbed his hands slowly up and down her back. "God, I don't want to leave you," he murmured in her ear.

With that, she knew she'd lost the battle to hold her tears back. She felt the first of them pool in the corners of her eyes, and they spilled onto Derek's coat before she could stop them. "Ugh," she groaned and stepped back from him to brush the tears away. "We're not doing this. We're not that couple. I refuse to be that girl." Except that she was that girl, terrified that he was going to leave, and despite his promises, not come back. It wouldn't be the first time, but she didn't think she could handle it happening again. She needed him to come back; she needed him to show up and keep this promise.

"Nine days, Mere," Derek reminded her. "I'll call you tonight."

Meredith nodded, but couldn't bring herself to actually say the words to tell him good-bye. Instead, she let him kiss her cheek one last time, and watched until he'd disappeared into the security queue. Nine days. She only had to get through the next nine days, and then it would be okay. Nine days. She reached into her pocket and felt the keys to Derek's car, and took a deep breath as she turned to leave.

Day one had begun.


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Hey look, a new chapter! Thanks for being patient. I hope you enjoy the update. As always, please feel free to let me know what you thought/liked/didn't like. **

"Okay, when we get to Mom's, you're going to—"

"Wait outside until you've scouted out the living room," Derek interrupted his oldest sister, who seemed determined to go over The Plan for the hundredth time on the drive across town to the brownstone his mother had called home for the past thirty-two years.

Kathleen glared at him in the rearview mirror, and he was immediately grateful that his suitcase was already stuffed in the trunk of Kathy's car. Even if he hadn't planned to spend the remainder of his visit sleeping in his old bedroom at his mother's, he knew he would be now. "We haven't told all the kids," Kathleen reminded him. "We didn't think they could keep the secret. If you walk in and they see you first, they'll ruin the surprise for Mom."

"Fine," Derek said crossly. "I'll stand outside and be mugged on Christmas Eve. Or freeze to death. That will _really _make Mom's holiday special."

"Derek, quit being so difficult," Kathleen chided. "You'll be outside for thirty seconds while I make everything's ready. We've come this far; you're not going to mess it up now because you're a baby about the cold."

Derek had felt the change in temperature immediately after his plane had landed the night before. It was at least ten degrees colder in New York than it had been when he left Seattle, and he'd been shocked by how drastically less than two years on the west coast had altered his tolerance for New York weather. Fortunately, Kathy's apartment was well-heated, and Derek had been exhausted from the cross-country travel. After a quick call to Meredith (quicker than he'd have liked, but she'd been paged to a trauma in the pit and he couldn't really argue with that), he'd spent about an hour with his nieces and nephews before turning in for the night. He'd known that he'd need all the rest he could get in preparation for the production that Christmas Eve at his mother's house would inevitably be.

He hadn't realized how big a production Christmas Eve _morning_ would be in the Cavanaugh household. He still hadn't forgiven his brother-in-law for not warning him about Kathleen, although Derek should have known to expect his sister's perfectionism to show up and take charge and yank him from a warm bed at six-thirty in the morning. He'd spent most of his morning helping Kathleen prepare spanikopita for dinner (apparently, he learned, two of his nieces had recently adopted vegetarianism and refused to eat the lasagna that had been the traditional Shepherd Christmas Eve meal since Derek was a baby), and he'd been left to babysit while Kathleen ran last-minute errands in the afternoon. Finally, they'd gotten the call from Nancy that she'd arrived at their mother's, which was the prearranged signal that everyone was present for Derek's grand entrance.

It took Kathleen a few laps of the block before she found a parking spot big enough to squeeze her SUV into, and Derek remained in the car as Kathleen unloaded boxes, bag, and sundry packages into her children's arms and ushered them inside. It was surreal to be back here. The brownstone he'd lived in with Addison was five blocks away; three blocks, and he'd come to the deli he and Mark had frequented for lunch at least once a week. Addison's favorite bread came from a bakery two blocks east. He knew these streets; he'd grown up here, lived here, worked here, spent his entire life here, but it didn't feel like home. Eighteen months, and _home_ had become synonymous with a silver metal box in the middle of the woods and a Craftsman townhouse in Queen Anne, populated by surgical interns who didn't understand the concept of a closed door or privacy, and mostly—mostly home meant the scent of lavender and a certain wisp of a woman with green eyes that had captured him the moment he met her and an intoxicating smile that he'd spend the rest of his life trying to bring to her lips at every opportunity. His family was here, but it no longer felt where he belonged. Home was with Meredith, and he wasn't sure he'd ever felt homesick this badly before.

He felt the weight of his phone in his pocket and tried to mentally calculate the time in Seattle. Six here. Three in the afternoon for Meredith. She'd been on a thirty-six; she wouldn't be home until after midnight her time, but maybe…maybe she'd be free if he called her now. Just to hear her voice, before he was monopolized by his family the rest of the evening…just so they could talk for a second and she wouldn't think he'd forgotten his promise to call. Before he could move to dial her number, Kathleen rapped her fingers against the window and beckoned him urgently.

"Come on, John and Ethan have all the kids downstairs, but they won't stay there for long," she demanded as soon as he'd stepped onto the sidewalk. "Nancy has Mom cornered in the kitchen; Maggie and Julie are waiting in the living room."

His sisters lit up with bright grins as soon as he walked in the door, and Derek couldn't help the excitement that rose in him at the first meeting with his family in nearly two years. He hugged both Maggie and Julie quickly as they whispered their ecstatic hellos, and he made a mental note to tease Maggie later about the gray strands beginning to dust her dark hair. Derek inhaled deeply, relishing the scent of his mother's lasagna and the familiar aroma of her famous gingerbread. It smelled like Christmas.

"Mom?" Kathy called. "Put down the cookie batter for a second. We have a surprise for you."

Derek's heart leapt at the sound of his mother's voice. "Kathleen, we'll open all of our gifts together _tomorrow_. It can wait until then."

"No, Mom," Maggie insisted, winking at Derek with a grin. "This gift is perishable. We can't leave it in the car until tomorrow."

He could see his mother now, her back turned toward him as she busied over a bowl of what would undoubtedly become chocolate-chip cookies in another twenty minutes. Her hair, which had been salt-and-pepper the last time he'd seen her, was now nearly completely silver, and a surprised breath caught in his throat. When had his mother turned gray? She wasn't supposed to be aging—she was supposed to be the same as she'd been in his mind these last two years, and now, Derek was finally beginning to realize how much he'd missed.

"Fine," Kate Shepherd sighed, turning around and dusting her hands on her apron. "What is this surprise you're so—" she stopped abruptly as her eyes landed on her only son. With a gasp, her jaw dropped in shock, and she could only stare at him in disbelief for several long moments.

Derek felt a grin spread across his face as he stepped forward to hug her. "Hi, Mom."

Kate found her voice as she returned the embrace. "Derek, darling!" she exclaimed. She stepped back and dabbed at her watery eyes with the back of her hand. "I can't believe you're here! And _you_ four—" she rounded on his sisters, who had watched the reunion unfold and now stood to the side with identical cat-eating-the-canary grins. "You four knew about this?"

"We've been planning it all month," Maggie nodded. "We thought we'd surprise you."

"You definitely did that," Kate laughed. "Oh, Derek, I can't believe you're really here—it's been so long—just _look_ at you!"

Derek rolled his eyes good-naturedly as his mother inspected him, just waiting for a regretful cluck that he'd lost weight, or gained weight, or gone gray, or _something_. Instead, she just hugged him tightly again before declaring, "You look wonderful, Derek. How are you?"

Derek took in the familiar surroundings of his mother's kitchen, his four sisters behind him, and the jubilant smile on his mother's face. He thought about Meredith, too, how he could still feel her kisses on his face and her arms wrapped around him at the airport, how he'd heard the smile in her voice when he'd called the night before, and how _incredible_ it felt to know that she'd be there waiting when he came home. "Good," he sighed happily. "I'm great."

"Mama, is Uncle Derek here?"

Maggie and Derek turned at the soft whisper of a child's voice, and saw a mess of dark curls and bright blue eyes peeking around the doorway. The girl's eyes widened in recognition and she bolted into the kitchen, launching herself at Derek, who caught her skillfully in his arms and swung her onto his hip. "This can't be Bridget," he shook his head in disbelief. "Those freckles look like Bridget's, but I'm not sure. How old are you, little girl?"

"Eight," Bridget supplied.

"No, I guess you're not my Bridget," Derek frowned. "I distinctly remember that my niece had just turned seven years old when I moved. You do look like her, though."

"Uncle Derek, I had another birthday," Bridget replied impatiently. "I'm eight now. I'm almost _nine_. You've been gone almost two years."

"Have I?" Derek pretended to be surprised. "When did you get so good at math?"

Before Bridget could respond, Derek heard thundering footsteps that signaled the approaching stampede of his other thirteen nieces and nephews. Bridget giggled as Derek braced himself for the impact, but he still nearly dropped her as one of Nancy's boys slammed into the back of his knee and caused his legs to buckle. "Hang on, sweetheart," he said as he carefully lowered Bridget to the ground. "Okay, Braden, where did you go?" he twisted and seized Nancy's son and lifted him into the air, flipping him upside down as he did. "I'm getting too old for this," Derek groaned, but as his nephew's laughter reached his ears, he couldn't help but grin. The only thing that could make this better would be Meredith, but he could bide his time for a holiday with _all_ of his family—for the time being, he had to admit that this was pretty close to perfect.

* * *

After dinner had been devoured and the few leftover that remained had been put away, after the youngest children had been bathed to remove the tomato sauce that had somehow covered every patch of unclothed skin, the Shepherd family donned their Sunday best and walked out the door at eleven at night to begin the caravan toward the church for midnight mass. Derek should probably have felt more guilty than he did, attending his first church service in two years (and then there was the whole divorced thing on top of that), but mostly, he only felt bad when Nancy had to dig her elbow into his ribs every few minutes to keep him from nodding off. He wasn't the only one who found it difficult to stay awake; by the time mass ended and they arrived back at the brownstone, no less than five of the children were fast asleep.

He carried one of Nancy's twins inside and handed her off to Nancy as the family began to bed down for the night. Maybe his fatigue played some part in it, but even though he'd just told Meredith about their traditions a few days before, Derek was completely unprepared for the chaos that ensued as over twenty people tried to find a place to sleep. Kathleen and Maggie took the girls' old bedrooms with their spouses. Julie and Nancy agreed to share the bed in Derek's room, as their husbands were both on-call all night, which left Derek on the living room couch. The babies stayed with their parents, and the teenagers had secured the basement den and its fold-out for themselves, so all that remained for the other children was the living room floor, creating a veritable obstacle course for Derek as he wove through the maze of sleeping bags and bodies to reach the couch.

The multi-colored lights flickered on the tree across the room, casting dim shadows of red, green, blue, and gold on the double row of stockings draped across the fireplace with clothesline and pins. Derek tried to settle onto the couch, grimacing as a spring poked into his lower back, and flipped open his phone as he turned to his side. Nearly two o'clock. Meredith would still be at work for at least another hour. He'd slipped away from dinner earlier and left her a voicemail asking her to call him when she had a free moment, and she'd texted him back minutes later to tell him that she was going into surgery, but would call after her shift ended, if he didn't mind it being so late. As if it would ever be too late to hear her voice.

He lay on his side in the relative quiet, listening as his nieces and nephews' excited whispers faded, becoming softer and further apart, until they were replaced by the soft, rhythmic sound of their breaths as they drifted off to sleep. He hadn't quite adjusted to the time change yet; he knew by the time he did, he'd be on a plane back to Seattle, and _that_ change would be even worse. For now though, it was just annoying that he couldn't fall asleep, but would need to be awake in two hours to help his sisters play Santa for the kids.

"Uncle Derek?"

Derek opened one eye to see Jaime, Maggie's baby, standing next to the couch, trailing her favorite pink security blanket. "Hey, princess," he said hoarsely. "You've got to go to sleep. Don't you want Santa to come?"

"I'm not sleepy," Jaime yawned.

"Right," Derek chuckled. "Come here, kiddo," he said, sitting up and scooping Jaime and her blanket into his arms. He and Addison had kept Jaime overnight not long before he left, and she'd pulled the not-sleepy card then, too. Maggie had warned them she would, and advised that she would pass out if they let her lie down with them. He wasn't sure it would still work, now that she was five and not three, but he figured it was worth a shot.

"Were you excited when your mom told you I was coming to visit?" he asked.

"Uh-huh," Jaime nodded. "Uncle Derek, where's Aunt Addie?"

Derek let out a slow breath. He knew that his sisters would have explained the divorce, but he shouldn't be surprised that Jaime, with her young age, was still confused. "Aunt Addie and I aren't married anymore," he said gently. "She still loves all of you very much, but she's not my wife anymore."

"Oh," Jaime replied. "Where does she live?"

"She lives in California," Derek answered. "She says that she can walk to the beach from her house."

"Really?" Jaime's eyes widened in excitement. "Is your house by the beach, too, Uncle Derek?"

"No," Derek shook his head. "It's by a lake though. I can go fishing every morning if I want to."

Jaime wrinkled her nose and frowned. "Who would want to go fishing every day?"

Derek laughed. "You sound like your Aunt Addie."

"Who's gonna be my aunt now?" Jaime asked thoughtfully. "Do you have a new wife?"

"No, not yet," Derek replied. "I have a girlfriend though. I'd like her to be your aunt one day."

"What's her name?" Jaime snuggled closer to Derek and tucked her blanket under her chin.

"Meredith." Derek smiled. He loved the way her name felt on his tongue.

"Meredith?" Jamie repeated. "Is she pretty?"

"Mm, very pretty," Derek assured her. "She's very pretty and very nice."

"I think I'd like her," Jaime decided, as if those two factors were enough to determine Meredith's likeability—and maybe, for a five-year-old, they were. "Would she like me, Uncle Derek? Does she have any kids?"

"No, she doesn't have kids," Derek replied. "And yes, I think she'd like you. I also think you need to go to sleep so Santa can come. I don't know about you, but I want my presents in the morning."

"Okay," Jaime agreed as her mouth widened in another deep yawn. "Do you think Santa will like Grandma Kate's cookies?"

It was completely Pavlovian for Derek's mouth to water at the thought of his mother's gingerbread, and as he looked forward to four A.M., when he and his sisters would rise to put out the gifts for the kids, he felt one-hundred-percent certain when he told Jaime that yes, "Santa" would appreciate the cookies left out for him. At least…as long as Santa beat his sisters to them, but he didn't see the need to add that stipulation for Jaime.

Jaime slowly drifted to sleep, and Derek found himself wandering off into daydreams of what could be. When he and Addie had lived here, they'd helped babysit every now and then. Addison liked taking the girls shopping and for manicures, and Derek had loved having any of the kids over, especially when they kept the youngest ones to allow the parents to get a decent night's sleep. With Jaime curled up on his chest, the heat from her forehead radiating against Derek's neck, he was transported back to nights in their brownstone, cuddling a baby niece or nephew and biding his time until it could be his _own_ child in his arms. He'd wanted kids, but Addison had never been ready. He'd never have imagined that he'd be nearly 38 years old and still childless—and likely to stay that way, at least for the immediate future. The possibilities were so real he could see them, feel them, sense them. If Meredith…then maybe. Maybe in a year or two (well, maybe two or three, if he was realistic), he could be curled up on the same couch, Meredith by his side, happy and satisfied and loved by his family (as he was sure she would be—eventually), and in his arms, a baby. His baby. With Meredith. He could see it so clearly—a boy or girl (that was the part he _couldn't_ see that clearly, or maybe it just didn't matter), healthy and perfect, with his hair and Meredith's green eyes. It could be _his_ child that he whispered to in the dark about Santa and presents and reindeer and...it was all a maybe.

He'd promised Meredith to stop pushing, to take things at whatever pace she needed. Kids were maybe, _maybe_, a distant speck on the horizon, and not something he needed to burden her with right now. But it was a thought—a nice thought, a consuming thought. A dream, and one he'd give the world to make a reality, but still, no more than a wish for now. Meredith, thankfully, wasn't a dream anymore. She was real, and his, and they were together—if, temporarily, geographically apart. And for now? That was enough.

Derek carefully stood up and negotiated his way to the pallet of blankets where Bridget was curled up, fast asleep. He laid Jaime next to her sister and covered both girls up with a quilt before returning to his couch with a reluctant sigh. It shouldn't be this hard to fall asleep. It wasn't about the jet lag, because between the flight and the frenetic family festivities, he was sufficiently exhausted. It was that _she_ wasn't here, and it made no sense that her absence should preclude his ability to sleep. He'd gone months without sharing a bed with her, but two nights—two nights in one week—and he couldn't fall asleep without the weight of her head on his chest and the scent of lavender lulling him into unconscious bliss. She was ruining him, but he loved her for it.

He shut his eyes and tried to will himself to sleep, and after several minutes, he had just begun to think that it might be working when he heard a creak on the stairs. He bolted upright, expecting to find one of his teenaged nephews conducting a late-night raid on the leftovers, or one of the younger kids sent on a reconnaissance mission to see if Santa had arrived yet. He'd show them, trying to sneak around while their Uncle Derek was on sentry duty.

The figure came into view, but instead of a child's form, the prowler took the shape of his sixty-seven year old mother. "Oh, it's you," Derek sighed. "I thought you went to bed, Mom."

"I have some trouble sleeping now and then," Kate explained with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I'm just going to make some tea. Would you like to join me?"

He knew his mother well enough to know that it wasn't a kind invitation so much as a polite order; he wasn't surprised. He'd been waiting for her to pull him aside for the obligatory "tell-me-about-your-life" conversation all evening. Still, other than the disappearing to the other side of the country for two years thing, Derek was a good son and obediently followed his mother into the kitchen without question. As she busied herself with heating water for her chamomile tea, Derek eyed the plate of cookies put out for Santa and took one, biting the arm off the gingerbread man without a second thought.

"Are you still living in the trailer?" Her back was turned to him, so he couldn't see her face, but there was no mistaking the disapproving concern in her voice.

"Yes," he admitted. "But—it's nice. It's a really beautiful piece of property, and it's quiet and secluded."

"Derek, you're nearly forty years old," Kate chided gently. "I understand a mid-life crisis, but it's been almost two years. Maybe it's time to stop playing in your fort in the woods."

"Thirty-eight," Derek corrected her. Kate frowned slightly in confusion. "I'm almost thirty-eight. And it's a trailer, not a fort."

"Oh, Derek," Kate rolled her eyes. "As if I could forget how old you are--I _was_ there when you were born, after all. They say it gets easier with every pregnancy, but you? You were my last, and nineteen hours of labor—"

"Mom!" Derek yelped. "Do we really have to do this?"

"You were a good baby, though," Kate shrugged as she took a glass from the cabinet and poured a glass of milk for Derek, as though proving her point that as his mother, she remembered everything, including his favorite midnight snack as a child. "A fat little thing—and look at you now. No one would ever believe you were nearly nine pounds when you were born, to see how skinny you are now."

Derek was suddenly very glad that Meredith _wasn't _here with him. She would have eaten all these embarrassing details up, and his mother would have been all too happy to oblige Meredith's appetite. His dismay must have shown on his face, and Kate chuckled and patted his arm fondly. "Relax, darling, I'll stop. But you didn't honestly expect to stay away for two years and come home without at least a _little_ teasing, did you?" She paused and studied him thoughtfully for a moment. "You do look a little thin, dear."

There was probably a joke about Meredith's cooking waiting to be made after that observation, but it seemed like too much of a potshot when she wasn't around to defend herself. Not that she would, because Meredith was as much a critic of her tendency to burn water as anyone, but still. He blamed it this time on stress and long hours at the hospital, and that seemed enough to pacify his mother, and offered an easy transition into questions about work. He told her about his position as department head and that he'd been offered the position of Chief of Surgery before turning it down; he realized with a pang of guilt that Meredith still knew nothing about what had _really_ happened in the race for Chief. He'd never told her that he'd resented her for complicating things, never told her that he'd declined the job of his dreams for her (because _she_ was the dream that mattered) just hours before she'd declared them over. He'd accused her of not trusting him, yet he was still hiding things from her. He didn't want to tell her now—it seemed irrelevant after the fact—but he knew that it was incredibly important as they worked through their problems. She had to know the truth. All of it. Even if she'd be angry—and she would be, he was sure—he had to stop lying to her, and the things he _didn't_ tell her? Those had always been bigger lies than the mistruths that _did_ leave his lips. She deserved better; he owed her better than he'd given her.

Kate's tea finished brewing, and she settled into a chair across from Derek and lifted the steaming mug to take a cautious sip. Derek helped himself to another cookie—Meredith would never believe he'd indulged as much as he had, but he couldn't help himself.

"Nancy told me about the woman you're dating," Kate said, seemingly out of the blue, considering that a minute before, they'd been talking about his job. "She said she's lovely."

Derek choked on his cookie and reached for the milk. His mother bringing up Meredith had surprised him, but _nothing_ could have prepared him for the second half of her comment. "She did?" he cried in disbelief.

"Well, you know Nancy," Kate replied, making allowance for her youngest daughter with a wave of her hand. "Maybe not in those exact words, but she did say that you seem very smitten with her."

Only his mother would actually use the word "smitten", but once he thought about it, Derek had to admit that it was pretty accurate. "Yeah," was all he said. "She's…incredible."

"What was her name?" Kate tried to recall. "Mary something, isn't it?"

"Meredith," Derek replied. "Her name is Meredith."

"That's very pretty," Kate said noncommittally. "Are you living together?"

Derek nearly choked again on the milk and eyed his mother warily. He knew her well enough, had gone through this interrogation enough times, to know that there wasn't a right answer. If he said yes, not only would he be lying, but he'd be sure to receive a disapproving look and a subtle cluck of her tongue. If he told the truth and assured her that he and Meredith weren't currently living in sin (even though they'd unofficially lived together months earlier), she'd question how serious he was about the relationship, and he really didn't want to explain to his mother that they'd been broken up for most of the last six months. "No," he said finally. "We've talked about building a house on my land—" that much was true, he conceded, "—but we're not ready for it. She has a place in town."

"Not ready for it?" Kate repeated with a raised eyebrow. "I thought you were serious about this woman."

"I am," Derek insisted immediately. "I am serious about her, it's just—"

"I didn't mean to upset you, dear," Kate said hurriedly. "I just thought—you gave up your marriage for this woman--"

"Meredith didn't break up my marriage," Derek shook his head stubbornly. "It was broken long before I met her, especially after Addison and Mark—"

"But you met her before your divorce was finalized," Kate pointed out.

"And Addison screwed my best friend before I met Meredith," Derek snapped.

Kate frowned, slightly wounded by her son's cross tones and coarse language, but Derek wouldn't apologize for defending Meredith. "If you'd let me finish, Derek," she began in a tone that made it clear he shouldn't interrupt her again, "I was just going to say—regardless of what happened with you and Addison and how…Meredith…may have factored in that, she has been part of your life for almost two years, and it took Nancy flying across the country to prove that she actually exists. I thought we might have met her by now. I'm thrilled that you came home for Christmas, Derek—it's the best gift you and your sisters could have given me—but I have to say, I was a little disappointed that you didn't bring Meredith with you. I would have liked to meet her."

"I…really want you to meet her, too," Derek agreed. "But she's not—she had to work and—" he trailed off, realizing how weak the excuse sounded now. Obviously, he'd had to work, too, and his mother knew as well as he did that if Meredith had wanted to be there, Derek could have easily pulled the necessary strings to make sure it happened. "Meredith—she's been through a lot this year," he sighed. "We've both been through a lot. We're okay now, but—it was just too much for her. She has a…complicated…history with her own family, and Nancy didn't exactly make Meredith feel like she'd be welcomed into mine."

Kate nodded slowly in understanding. "I knew I should have sent Maggie—she's so much more tactful about these sorts of things. But Nancy is nothing if she's not determined, and Maggie had so much going on with the girls—was Nancy really that awful?"

"She was…pretty bad," Derek admitted. "Meredith had come over to see me," he remembered, "and she walked in to see Nancy on my bed and completely misunderstood. I introduced them officially the next morning at the hospital and Meredith tried to be nice, but Nancy—she was spiteful. You know how close she and Addison are—she was cruel to Meredith, even to me."

"But she seemed to approve when she came home," Kate offered.

"I made it clear that Meredith wasn't going anywhere," Derek shrugged. "She seemed to accept Meredith when she left. What did she say to you about her?"

"She said you seem quite smitten with her," Kate repeated. "She said that you're very protective of Meredith and that you seem to really care for her."

"I do," Derek smiled. "I love her."

Kate sighed happily. "You don't know how glad I am to hear that. I've been worried about you, Derek. Our family has been through so much, but we've always been together…it's been hard having you gone, not knowing what you're doing or if you're okay…if you're happy. But if you've found someone who makes you happy—"

"She does," he assured her. "I'm sorry. I know I should have called more, and I probably should have come home sooner but—it's just been an impossibly busy two years. So much has happened, Mom, but it's…it's all okay now. I'm happy at work, and I'm happy with Meredith. It hasn't been easy since I left, but you don't have to worry."

Kate sipped at the last of her tea, creating a pause pregnant with thought. "So…Meredith. You're so smitten with her…is there still a chance I might get grandchildren from you?"

Derek laughed uneasily. Even though he'd been entertaining his fantasies of a future with Meredith half an hour before, he was reluctant to allow his mother the same indulgence. The women in his family were known for stretching an inch into a mile, and if he acknowledged that he _hoped_ Meredith would want a baby one day, the next think he and Meredith would know, his mother would be sending Derek's old baby clothes in care packages complete with unsolicited old-wives'-tale advice she'd collected from her friends on what to eat before sex if they wanted a boy or a girl. (And _that_, he was sure, would send Meredith running for the hills, her newly renewed commitment to their relationship be damned.) "We haven't talked about kids," he answered instead. "Right now, we're working toward the house, I think, and that's enough for now."

"Maybe I can fly out to Seattle for a visit," Kate suggested. "Then I could meet Meredith and see what your life is like now."

"Maybe," Derek agreed. He wasn't opposed to his mother visiting for a few days--any more than that might be too much, especially if she began hanging new curtains in the trailer—but he didn't want to commit just yet. There was enough to take care of home in Seattle without introducing his mother to Meredith yet, even if Kate _was_ being much more receptive to the idea of Meredith than Derek had ever allowed himself to hope.

"How is Mark?" Kate asked. Derek was grateful for the abrupt shift that took the conversation away from Meredith.

"He's…fine," Derek replied, even though he knew that his mother was really fishing to see if they'd made any progress mending their friendship. Mark had been part of their family for over thirty years, and Derek knew that even though his mother would always, always side with Derek over Mark, a part of her missed having her surrogate son as well. "He took it pretty badly when Addison left for L.A.," he added as an afterthought, "but he's mostly back to normal now. At least, as normal as Mark ever was."

"Nancy told me that it was worse than we thought," Kate admitted. "She said that you told her that he and Addison had carried on the affair for months, not just the one-time indiscretion we thought it was."

"Yeah," Derek replied vaguely. Reliving the betrayal of his wife and best friend, the disintegration of his marriage—even if it had led him to Meredith—was not helping foster holiday cheer in him.

"Mark told us, you know," Kate continued. "When you disappeared and didn't tell us anything more than you were leaving Addison—we were in a panic. We didn't know where you'd gone at first, what had happened—and you weren't answering our calls. After we'd been calling him for a week asking if he'd heard from you, Mark came over and confessed what he and Addison had done."

Derek had never really known how his family had found out about the affair. By the time he'd finally called them, he'd been gone two weeks and holed up in a hotel room, the ink on his contract with Seattle Grace barely dry. It had taken that long for him to learn to suppress the bile that rose every time he remembered that scene in his bedroom, to work up the energy to tell his family, and by then, they'd already known. He'd always assumed that Addison had told Nancy, who would have spread the news efficiently to the rest of the family. He would have never expected that _Mark_ would have been the one to come clean first. Mark thought of Mark first, and Derek's family was the only one he'd ever really had. Even if Mark knew that what he'd done with Addison would damage his place in the family, Derek would never have imagined that he'd actually _offer_ the truth, knowing the consequences, rather than hope that somehow, his role in the whole sordid affair would never come to light. "I didn't know that."

"He felt horrible," Kate remembered. "I know Mark has never really been discerning with his girlfriends, but I think he genuinely believed that he was in love with Addison. He was devastated, Derek. Not because of Addison, but for hurting you—"

"We're fine," Derek interrupted her. "Mark and I. We're…okay. I know that's what you want to know. It's not perfect, not like it was. It won't be again, and I trust Meredith, but I'll never trust him with her. But we work together and we talk and every once in a while we go out for drinks, so if you need to hear that we're friends again—fine."

"I'm glad you've been able to work through things," Kate smiled.

Derek replied with a weak smile of his own. He wasn't sure it was so much working through things as it was a thirty-year friendship transcending almost anything. It was an unspoken agreement that they absolutely did not discuss Addison and what had happened, and he hoped that Mark also understood that Derek would kill him if ever touched Meredith. Derek probably would have been content to hold onto the grudge a few more years if Mark hadn't been there when Meredith drowned. In those few hours of despair, Mark had been a silent, solid comfort by his side; even if Addison had tried to console him, and she _had_ done her best, it couldn't replace Mark's value in that moment, because Mark _knew_. He'd done this before, except then, they'd both been seven years old, and rather than a hallway, they'd sat in silence on the front stoop of the brownstone while Derek grieved and Mark waited, offering the only support he could by simply _being_ by his best friend's side. That had been the moment, Derek knew, that he'd let go of his determination to hate Mark for the remainder of their lives—because when his world seemed to be dying with Meredith, Mark had stayed. That wasn't something he was ready to explain to his mother; he hadn't told any of his family about Meredith's accident, and definitely didn't feel like doing so tonight.

"Do you think—" Kate began, but before she could finish, a buzzing sound interrupted her as Derek's phone vibrated on the table.

He snatched it up quickly and grinned as he recognized the name on the display, his fatigue immediately abated. "It's Mere," he explained eagerly. "Do you mind? I haven't talked to her today—"

Kate nodded as she rose from the table, empty mug in her hand. "Go ahead, dear. I'll see you in the morning."

"Good night, Mom," Derek replied as he slid his chair away from the table. He stood and ducked inside the laundry room, shutting the door behind himself for privacy; if he'd had anything other than _Meredith_ on his brain, he might have recognized the irony in the fact that he'd chosen the same spot that he'd mocked his sisters for claiming for their own late-night conversations with their high-school sweethearts. He didn't care; all that mattered was Meredith and finally, finally hearing her voice. "Hey," he murmured, answering her call on the fourth ring, just before voicemail picked up.

"Hi." He could tell she was tired—exhausted, really—but his heart leapt at the sound of her voice. "I can't believe you're still awake," she seemed pleasanly surprised.

"Mass," he explained. "We got in late, and then I was talking to my mom just now."

"Oh—am I interrupting?" The exhaustion had been temporarily displaced by panic, and Derek hurried to reassure her as he settled on the floor, leaning back against the washer.

"No, no. She's gone to bed. I'm all yours."

"I won't keep you long," Meredith promised. "I know you must be tired."

"It's fine, Mere," he replied, even as he fought back a sudden yawn. "I want to talk to you. I've been waiting all day to hear your voice."

"Mm," he could picture the slight frown on her lips as she hummed regretfully. "I'm sorry. It's been crazy in the hospital."

"I can imagine. I worked Christmas Eve the first three years of my residency," he told her. His intern year, he and Mark had both been in the ER when a family was brought in with severe burns after their Christmas tree caught fire. Even though Mark had always joked that he went into plastics for the breast implants, every time he saw Mark bent over the bed of a child sobbing from the pain of severe burns, Derek returned to that Christmas Eve and the image of Mark's pale, drawn face as he gingerly tended to the angry burns covering that three-year-old girl's legs, and he knew better. "Are you holding up okay?"

"Yeah," she sighed wearily. "I had a nap earlier this afternoon, and lots of coffee. But that's not what you're asking, is it?"

"Not exactly," he replied.

"I'm okay," she said. After a moment's pause, she admitted, "It's…harder than I thought."

"I miss you, too," he assured her. "I think it's harder because we haven't really been able to talk since I left."

"When did we become so clingy and needy?" Meredith laughed in amusement.

Derek answered without hesitation. "When we broke up for six weeks and I realized how miserable my life is without you."

"That's sweet," Meredith replied dryly. He could picture her rolling her eyes at him, and the image made him smile. "Disgustingly sweet. Cristina would stab me if she knew I let you say things like that to me."

"We could have nicknames," he suggested teasingly. "Honey and sweetheart and pumpkin and—"

She interrupted him quickly before he could offer any more equally embarrassing alternatives. "Derek, I'll hang up on you."

"Fine," he grinned. "I was kidding anyway."

"I know." She was quiet for a long moment, and when she spoke again, the lightness was gone from her voice, replaced by timidity and hesitation. "Did you and Addison do the pet name thing?"

He frowned. "Why are we talking about Addison? I haven't talked to you in two days and you want to know about Addison?" He hated when she did this—he didn't want her to compare herself to Addison. He supposed it was probably inevitable—he couldn't change the fact that he'd been married, and even more regrettably, he'd chosen Addison and given Meredith cause to doubt her own worth—but he wanted—needed—her to understand _now_ that _she_ was who he wanted, not Addison. He didn't want the relationship he'd had with Addison to be the blueprint for his life with Meredith—Meredith was different, but it didn't make her less, and he didn't know how to help her see that.

"Quit dodging the question," Meredith insisted.

"Sometimes," he admitted with a sigh. "Mostly her, but yes. I can't see myself doing it with you. Not because I don't love you, but…I think you'd beat me with those tiny ineffectual fists of yours if I did."

That made her laugh. "If they're so ineffectual, why are you afraid of them?"

"Mm, you've got me there," he conceded. Meredith _was_ quite formidable, a passionate force of nature, and he'd be a liar if he pretended that his experiences at the end of her fists hadn't left him with a profound respect for how very effective she could be. "Are you still at the hospital?"

"Pulling in the driveway," she replied. A moment later, he heard her car door open and slam shut. If he listened closely enough, he could almost convince himself that he heard her footsteps on the walk, her keys jingling in her hand as she opened the door and let herself into the house.

"Do you want me to let you go?" he asked. She'd be climbing the stairs now, kicking off her shoes just inside the bedroom door—or else sitting at the foot of her bed to unzip them, if she'd worn her boots. He considered asking, just for curiosity's sake, but somehow, he thought that she might take "What are you wearing?" as something far dirtier than he'd mean it. Although…that had possibilities, too, and it _was_ Christmas, after all…

"No. I want to talk to you," Meredith's voice distracted him from his dirty thoughts. "Tell me what you're doing. How was your Christmas Eve? How is your mother? Was she happy to see you?"

"She was," Derek replied. Leave it to Meredith to bring up his mother at that moment; _that_ was a sure-fire way to kill any fantasies he'd been entertaining about Meredith and what she may or may not be wearing. "She wants to meet you."

"Oh," she said, her tone far less than enthusiastic. "In a good wanting-to-meet-her-son's-girlfriend kind of way, or in a let's-see-the-homewrecking-slutty-intern kind of way?"

"Meredith--" he growled.

"It's a valid question," she said defensively.

"It's not," Derek argued. "I've told you you're not allowed to call yourself names anymore."

"Even if your family knows me as a slutty intern?" she asked.

"They don't," he assured her. "Mom said that Nancy gave you a good report."

"Derek, I don't care if it's Christmas," Meredith laughed bitterly. Her voice sounded far-off now; she must have put him on speakerphone to change clothes. The idea of her being half-naked, but out of his reach even when he could hear her voice, was sheer torture. "You don't have to lie to me. I can handle it if your family doesn't like me."

"I'm not lying, Mere," he insisted. "I know, it surprised me, too, after how Nancy treated you, but my mom…she knows you make me happy, and that's what she cares about. Not how we met or what happened with us. She just wants to meet you."

Meredith didn't answer for a minute. When she did, it almost broke his heart to hear in her voice how badly she wanted to believe him, and how afraid she was to let herself. "She does?"

"Yeah," he replied softly. "I'd really like you to meet her, too. Maybe in a few months we could fly out here for a visit. Just a weekend thing, so you're not overwhelmed…"

"Maybe," Meredith replied hesitantly.

Derek smiled. It wasn't much, but it was something, and it was much more than he could have imagined a few weeks earlier. "I'll take maybe for now When are you doing your Christmas tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow night sometime." Her voice was back to normal volume now, which must mean that she was dressed. He could picture her, fallen back on her bed, her knees bent and her free arm tossed over her head. "I'm sure Izzie will have me out of bed early helping with last minute stuff—crap!"

Her sudden yelp startled him. "What is it?"

"I forgot to wrap my gift," she groaned.

Lines creased Derek's forehead as he frowned in confusion. "Your gift?" They'd agreed before he left that they wouldn't give each other gifts this year. He hadn't even thought about it until she'd brought it up at their cafeteria lunch the day after their date, but when he'd seen how nervous she was about the prospect of having to procure a Christmas present for him in the span of a few days, he'd readily agreed that gift exchanges weren't necessary; they had each other back, he'd said, and that was enough for him.

"Izzie made us do a stupid secret Santa thing," Meredith muttered in explanation. "I got Izzie's name."

Addison had tried to set something like that up, once, with his family. Something about his fourteen nieces and nephews being too much to buy for every year. The only one who'd halfway agreed with Addison had been Julie, whose finances were strapped by their most recent round of in vitro, but whether guilt or just her natural shyness, she hadn't been very vocal in her support. Derek had always privately suspected that Addison wasn't so much concerned for anyone else's bank accounts as she was worried about being able to afford the December mortgage payment on the house in the Hamptons that she'd made Derek buy that summer, at least not without dipping into her shoe fund. "What did you get her?"

"A cookbook," Meredith replied. "And a new apron. It's pink." He grinned at the way she almost spat the word "pink", and could almost see her wrinkling her nose in distaste.

"That sounds like Izzie," he said encouragingly. "I'm sure she'll like it."

"Yeah," she sighed. She was getting tired, he could tell. He knew her—after a long shift like that, she started crashing the moment she hit the bed, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. "It was much easier than if I'd gotten someone like…Cristina."

"Mm," he hummed thoughtfully, "What _do _you buy for Cristina?"

"I have no idea," she giggled lightly. Really tired, then, he realized. She either turned very cranky or very silly when she was this tired, and of the two, he'd prefer silly—especially if it meant he got to hear that infectious giggle of hers. "I can't imagine you—having to come up with something for all of your family—"

"Gift cards," he confessed. "And checks. They go a long way with the kids, especially the older--" he broke off abruptly as she whimpered softly in an attempt to stifle a yawn. He sighed deeply. "Meredith—go to sleep."

"But—" she started to protest.

"No," he said firmly. His own body ached with fatigue, and he knew hers must be, too. He'd be happy to stay awake for hours more talking to her, and she'd make herself stay up for him, but he couldn't let her. She needed to sleep. "No buts. We'll talk later, okay? You've been at work for two days and I have to be up in about an hour to play Santa. You don't have to force yourself to stay up for me."

"Are you sure?" she said softly.

"Yeah," he sighed. A grin spread across his face as he added teasingly, "But thanks for calling, honey."

"Derek," she warned. He stifled a laugh—there it was. Cranky Meredith had shown up—granted, he'd undeniably baited her, but still. It was definitely time to let her go.

"Just testing it out," he assured her. "It doesn't work, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," she laughed.

"Okay," he murmured. "Good night, Meredith."

He waited until she'd said goodnight and hung up before he hauled himself off the laundry room floor with a heavy sigh. His mother had turned off the kitchen light on her way upstairs, and he fumbled his way back to the couch in near-solid darkness. Somehow, he managed to avoid tripping over any small bodies, and collapsed on the couch with a soft groan. He may not have her with him, but talking to Meredith had helped. He had a nagging suspicion that it might actually make him miss her more, eventually, but in this moment, the sound of her voice and her laughter still resounding fresh in his mind was enough to comfort him in her physical absence. His head had barely hit the pillow before he finally succumbed to sleep.

It seemed like he'd been asleep only five minutes before Julie was bent over him, gently nudging his shoulder and hissing at him to wake up. He grumbled and muttered in complaint until Nancy slapped him, demanding that he shut up before he woke the kids. Derek glanced at his phone once as he rolled off the couch. Four fifteen. Luckily, he and his sisters had perfected the art of laying out gifts as quickly and quietly as possible, and it took only fifteen minutes of stealth to move the mountains of meticulously wrapped presents from the hall closet to the base of the Christmas tree. Once the last box had been arranged, they congregated briefly in the kitchen, only for Julie to observe that the four cookies she and Erin had left out for Santa had mysteriously disappeared. While his sisters pondered what could have happened to them, Derek slipped unnoticed out of the room before they could notice the sheepish blush tinting his face.

* * *

Four hours of sleep. Derek had gotten by on far less, but he was feeling anything but merry when Julie's three year old daughter landed on his chest at seven-thirty in the morning. His back hurt, his head felt ready to split in two, and he immediately recognized his mood as one completely not conducive to an enjoyable Christmas morning. His oldest nieces and nephews were bright-eyed and generally nonplussed, which suggested that they'd been awake even longer, and already scouted out the spoils underneath the tree.

"Wake up, Uncle Derek!" Erin demanded in her three-year-old's lisp. "Presents!"

"Erin, honey, leave your uncle alone," Julie said gently, hooking one arm around her daughter and pulling her off Derek's chest.

Derek groaned as he sat up, and gratefully took the mug of coffee that Julie pressed into his hands. The excited squeals and shrieks of his nieces and nephews were a veritable assault on his eardrums, and he quickly took a strong swallow of coffee, wincing as it burned its way down his throat. He hoped it would kick in soon; the last thing he wanted was to be the Scrooge who stole Christmas. Wait. No. That was wrong. Grinch. _Grinches_ stole Christmas, Scrooges made it miserable. Meredith was rubbing off on him, and not in a good way; that sort of mix-up was something she would have done.

"Mom's making pancakes after we open presents, if you're hungry," Julie offered as she settled on the couch next to him, Erin bouncing excitedly on her knee for a few seconds before scurrying off to join her older cousins around the tree. "Unless you're still full from gingerbread."

"What?" Derek turned his head in sister's direction sharply. Her blue eyes sparkled mischievously as they studied him over the rim of her coffee cup. He laughed weakly. "You um…figured that out?"

Julie rolled her eyes. "Come on, Derek. We all _like_ Mom's cookies, but you and Dad were the two who always raided the kitchen on Christmas Eve and cleaned out the whole stock. When Mom's gingerbread disappears, we all know who the culprit is."

Derek smiled softly. One of the most solid memories he had of his father was their last Christmas together. Derek had been six—or, as he'd told everyone then, _practically_ seven—and he'd spent Christmas Eve decorating a gingerbread house with the girls while Kate prepared dinner. Their father had been in and out of the kitchen all afternoon, proclaiming that their house looked good enough to eat. The girls had giggled, but Derek remembered agreeing with his father. Decorating wasn't nearly as much fun as eating would be. Kate had been on a fitness kick then (Kathleen had been fourteen, and very self-conscious about how slowly her height seemed to be catching up to her weight), and all five children had been allowed just one cookie before bed. Derek remembered that Mark had been allowed to take a whole plate home to his family, which Derek had seen as a deep betrayal on his mother's part. He'd felt justified, then, in sneaking out of his bedroom after his parents had gone to bed and creeping downstairs to the kitchen.

He'd realized, too late, that what he'd thought was the sound of his parent's door closing had actually been his father sneaking out after his mother had fallen asleep. Too shocked to do the sensible thing and run before his father could see him, Derek had stood, frozen in the doorway, and awaited the punishment that would surely result from his late night expedition. Mark had told him a few weeks before that Santa wasn't real, and Derek hadn't yet decided whether he believed him, but he was pretty sure that sneaking out qualified as naughty behavior for his parents _and_ Santa, so either way—he'd messed up. Instead, Mike Shepherd had grinned at his son and winked, beckoning Derek over and hoisting him onto the counter before handing him a cookie. _Don't tell your sisters. Or your mom. It's our secret, okay?_

Derek had also promised not to tell Kathleen and Maggie that their dad was the one who ate the corner gable off the roof of their gingerbread house, and after two more cookies and a glass of warm milk, he'd worked up the courage to ask his father whether Mark had been telling the truth. _Of course Santa's real. Mark's parents just don't believe in Christmas magic, but you do, right?_ Derek had nodded eagerly, comforted that his father had reinforced his belief, and when Mike tucked him into bed a few minutes later, Derek had squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to fall asleep before Santa could arrive. The next Christmas, Mike had been dead for almost five months. Kate had tried to keep up their traditions, including making all five children write their letters to Santa the first of December, even if only Nancy and Derek still believed. Derek had thought about asking for his dad back, but decided against it. He knew that his dad wasn't coming back, and if he'd asked Santa for that miracle and didn't wake up Christmas morning to find his father waiting by their tree, it would mean that not only was his father dead, but that he'd lied about magic, too.

Derek rubbed at his eyes, pretending to be wiping away sleep, but really brushing away any hint of a tear that may have risen with the memory of his father. "Who sounded the alarm this morning?" he asked, trying to sound normal and not as grumpy as he felt.

Julie rolled her eyes and nodded at Kathleen's oldest son. "Seamus. He woke up Bridget and Jaime and told them to go jump on Maggie and Andy. He's pretending it was their idea, but there's no way those girls woke up this early on their own."

"Not Jaime," Derek agreed, recalling his late-night chat with his niece. "She didn't go to sleep until almost two-thirty." He paused to study his nephew, who was crouched on the floor along with the younger children, waiting anxiously for Nancy to begin distributing presents. "Seamus, huh? What kind of freak college student did Kathleen raise to voluntarily get out of bed before ten?"

"I think it's more of…not going to bed before ten," Julie suggested. Derek looked closer and realized that Seamus and the other kids who'd spent the night in the basement _did_ look…well, like Derek felt. He hadn't heard anything from them the night before, but they'd be pathetic excuses for teenagers if they hadn't learned to slide under adult radar.

Nancy was the last to arrive, balancing a twin on each hip. After placing her daughters safely out of the way of impending chaos, Nancy assumed her role as a one-woman present-distribution system. Within minutes, Kate's immaculate living room was covered in discarded wrapping paper, tape, shredded bows and ribbons, and the children were reveling in their new gifts. Derek was content with his own spoils, including several new sweaters that he was pretty sure Meredith was going to love, and hoped that he'd done okay with his selections for his nieces and nephews. Addison had always taken care of the Christmas shopping, even when they were just dating. He'd had input, of course, but he'd never been solely responsible for buying for so many. He supposed he should get used to it, though; he couldn't see Meredith as the type to look forward to hours in a shopping mall or poring over luxury catalogs. The kids seemed happy enough, so he figured he'd done okay for his first time solo shopping in fifteen years.

As if to confirm Julie's suspicions, after the family had stuffed themselves on pancakes, half of the oldest children nodded off, while the others retreated to the basement to try out their new video games. Derek spent nearly an hour with a small screwdriver and two packs of batteries helping the younger children make their new toys fully functional, with all the bells, whistles, sirens, and flashing lights advertised on the cardboard packaging. He drew the line, however, when Bridget and Jaime asked if they could practice with their new makeup set on his face. With as many cameras as there were in the house, he knew he would _never_ live it down if he allowed the girls to paint his face with vibrant shades of pink, purple, and blue. And if Meredith ever got her hands on the pictures? No. Absolutely not. He loved his nieces dearly, but there were some things he just couldn't do for them.

He spent the morning and early afternoon being the favorite uncle and devoted son, helping his mother in the kitchen and engaging in an hours-long Uno tournament with ten of his nieces and nephews, Nancy, and Maggie. Finally, around three in the afternoon, he bowed out of game and joined Julie in the kitchen, snatching a warm cookie from the batch she'd just taken from the oven.

"Decided to act your age?" she teased, swatting at him half-heartedly with a spatula.

"Decided to let Nancy win for once," he grinned. "Although I think Bridget might have her beat."

Jaime bounded into the kitchen, lured by the wafting aroma of cookies, a brand-new doll in her arms. "Aunt Julie, can I have a cookie?"

Julie automatically gave the mom-answer. "Go ask your mother."

"Give the kid a cookie, Julie," Derek said, scooping Jaime into his arms and grabbing another cookie for his niece. "What's the price, princess?"

Jaime tilted her head in confusion until Derek pointed up at the door frame over their heads. Jaime grinned when she saw the mistletoe and gave Derek an obliging kiss on his cheek. Derek handed the cookie over and lowered her to the floor, watching in amusement as she scampered away with her prize.

"You're good with them," Julie observed.

He turned back to his sister with a wry smile. "I have to make up for being gone for two years," he shrugged.

"It's a shame you and Addie never had kids," Julie mused. As if realizing the implication of what she said, she blushed furiously and hurried to add, "I mean—maybe it's a good thing, because of how things turned out. It would have been hard to put kids through a divorce, but I just—you would have been a great father, Derek."

"You say that like it's too late," Derek laughed. "I _am_ capable of fathering a child, you know."

"I didn't mean it like that," Julie replied. "Are you…do you think you will?"

"I want to," he admitted with a sigh. "Meredith and I haven't really talked about it. She knows I want them, so…maybe. One day." He smiled wistfully, and his eyes softened their gaze, becoming gentle with his voice. "What about you? Are you and Ethan…"

"We'll try again," she nodded fervently. "My doctor wants us to wait a few more months, which is…good, I think. It's about to get crazy at work, too. One of the other doctors in my practice is leaving, so…it's probably best…"

Derek frowned sympathetically and gave Julie's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "It's not too late for either of us, Jules."

Julie smiled slightly. "Thanks, Derek."

Grabbing one last cookie on his way out, Derek left the kitchen and crossed the living room, bypassing round eighteen of the Uno tournament on his way upstairs. He wound up in his parents' bedroom, seated on the floor leafing through old photo albums. He was a fat, bald baby in the first few, when all seven of them had been cramped into the Hell's Kitchen apartment they'd lived in the first five years of Derek's life. Meredith would never believe that the thick curls she loved to tangle her fingers in hadn't even begun to _hint_ at their presence until he was six months old. By the time he reached the third album, he was a little more than two years old and sporting a full head of dark hair.

It was what he'd always expected his own kids to look like. When he'd pictured his maybe-kids with Meredith the night before, these were the images he'd more or less used as the model. What struck him more were the photos of his father. He didn't keep pictures of his dad in his home—either the brownstone with Addison or the trailer in Seattle—and with only childhood memories to preserve the image of his father, Derek rarely recognized how much he looked like his father. Staring at the pictures in his mother's album, seeing himself as a child in his father's arms, he couldn't miss the resemblance. He was Mike Shepherd made over—the spitting image, his mother would say, of his father.

He'd accepted his father's death years earlier. He could barely remember Christmases with his father; for thirty years, the people downstairs had been his only family, the people he shared birthdays and Thanksgivings and Christmases with. They were his family, so he didn't understand why something felt so…wrong…this year. Incomplete. Something was missing. He loved his nieces and nephews, his sister, his mother, and he didn't regret coming home to see them. It had been good for him—he readily admitted that—but he didn't feel complete.

He pulled another album off the shelf and opened it to the first Christmas they'd had in the brownstone, the year his father had inherited it from a recently-decreased uncle. He laughed and skimmed his fingers over a photo of himself and Mark—or at least, the five-year-old versions of themselves. He was wearing one of those hideous sweaters he'd told Mere about; he'd forgotten that his mother had purchased a matching one for Mark that year, too. His welcome to the family.

And then…what he'd known all along seemed explicitly clear. He didn't feel complete because his family wasn't. He'd learned to deal with the hole left by his father's death, but this was the first Christmas with his family, but without Mark. It wasn't just Mark, though, and it wasn't even Addison, even though she'd been in the picture for over a decade. Maybe it was seeing his sisters and their husbands so happily together and suddenly being single at a family gathering for the first time in fifteen years, and maybe it was recognizing how much he really _did_ miss his friendship with Mark, but whatever it was…Derek missed his family. All of them. And even if he was here with most of them…it wasn't the same. Even if Mark had been here, it wouldn't be the same. He wanted Meredith, and nothing was going to feel right without her.

* * *

Derek wasn't able to talk to her for a few more hours. His mother had recruited his help in the kitchen, but when Nancy returned from picking her husband up at the hospital after his shift ended, she took over kitchen duty for Derek and he seized the opportunity to slip away for a phone call. He borrowed Jaime from another makeup session with Bridget and lifted her to his hip. "Come here, princess," he said in a low, conspiring tone. "Do you want to talk to Meredith?"

"Your girlfriend?" Jaime replied eagerly. "Okay."

"Okay," Derek grinned. "Here's what we're going to do." He explained his plan to her as he carried her into the dining room, and switched the speakerphone on before he dialed Meredith's number. It rang twice before she answered.

"Hey," she said breathlessly. Jaime looked to Derek quizzically, and he nodded encouragingly.

"Hi," Jaime said, with much more shyness than suited her normally gregarious personality. "Is this Meredith?"

"Yes…" Meredith replied slowly. "Who is this?"

"Jaime."

"Hi, Jaime," Meredith said warmly, apparently recognizing that one of Derek's nieces must have stolen his phone.

"What are you supposed to tell her?" Derek whispered.

"I don't remember," Jaime hissed back.

"Yes you do," Derek urged. He heard Meredith laugh lightly; she'd heard his voice and realized that this was a game.

Jaime's eyes glinted mischievously, and her cheeks flushed pink as she told Meredith smugly, "I kissed your boyfriend."

"You did?" Meredith laughed. "Who is my boyfriend?"

"Uncle Derek," Jaime giggled.

"Tell her what else," Derek said. "Where were we when you kissed me?"

Jaime frowned thoughtfully, studying his face for a clue. "Under the mistletoe?" she guessed.

"Tell her, not me," Derek gestured to the phone in his hand.

"I kissed Uncle Derek under the mistletoe," Jaime repeated confidently.

"What are you supposed to ask her?" Derek prompted.

Jaime didn't need help remembering that part. "Are you jealous?"

"I am," Meredith assured her with deadpan seriousness. "Very jealous. Can I talk to your Uncle Derek so I can tell him how jealous I am?"

Jaime turned to Derek with the question on her face. "Is that all, Uncle Derek?" He nodded, and Jaime turned back to the phone. "Yes. Okay, here's Uncle Derek. Bye, Meredith."

"Bye, Jaime," Meredith replied. Derek winked at Jaime as she returned to the living room to finish her makeover, and turned the speaker off as he brought the phone to his ear.

"Hey," he murmured.

"Hi," she returned happily. "I was starting to think you weren't going to call today."

"Are you kidding?" Derek asked incredulously. "I wanted to tell you Merry Christmas."

"Thanks. Merry Christmas to you, too," Meredith replied. "It's almost dinner time where you are. Shouldn't you be with your family?"

"I slipped away for a few minutes," he explained, shrugging even though she couldn't see the gesture. "Have you had your Christmas with your friends?"

"Not yet. Izzie wants to wait for Cristina, and her shift doesn't end until eight," Meredith answered. "I think she's going to stall as long as possible, honestly. You?"

"The kids are playing with their presents. Mom has a batch of cookies in the oven," Derek said. "Jaime wanted to talk to you, so I told her we'd call while the cookies were baking.

"Right," Meredith laughed skeptically. "_Jaime_ wanted to call. Seriously, Derek, using a four year old to make me jealous?"

"She's five," he corrected her playfully. "Did it work? You're supposed to be disappointed that you're not here to kiss me under the mistletoe."

"Mm. I am," she played along. "Heartbroken."

"You could at least try to sound convincing," he pouted. "Make me think you're pining for me at least a little."

"Oh, I am," she replied in the same mocking tone. "I'm barely functioning without you."

"Damn, Mer, don't hold back," he grinned. "That hurts my ego a little."

"You have enough ego to spare." She didn't sound too convinced, but after a moment, she took a deep breath and confessed, "Seriously though—I do miss you."

"I miss you, too," he sighed. "I wish you were here. I know you're not ready and I understand it, I just—I want my all of my family here, and you're not. It doesn't feel as good as it should."

"Derek, you're having a great time," she said in an attempt to placate him. "I can hear it in your voice. You are eating up all this time with your nieces and nephews."

"I am," he agreed slowly. "I just…I wish there was a way that I didn't have to choose between you. What do you say we do our own celebrating when I get back?"

"For Christmas?" she asked. "Derek, we agreed. We're not doing presents for each other this year. It's too much pressure after being back together for five days—"

"We don't have to do presents," he assured her quickly in an effort to hold off her panic before it could escalate any further. "Just…spend some time together. Call in sick to work and take advantage of the day off to have some time together…"

"It's tempting," Meredith admitted hesitantly.

"Then say yes."

"It has to be after the first of the year," Meredith insisted. "I won't have leave time until then."

"Well, of course. I won't even be back until January first," Derek reminded her.

When her voice fell flat, he immediately wished that he hadn't brought that particular bit of information back to her attention. "Oh, right. I knew that."

"Are you going to be okay until then?" he asked softly.

"Yeah. I'll be fine," she said. She took another deep breath before continuing, "I just…tomorrow's the day, Derek."

The brunch. She'd been dreading it even when she first told him about it on the way to the airport. He should have remembered, should have thought to ask if she was ready. "For your sisters? It'll be fine. Great, even," he said confidently.

"I don't believe you," Meredith replied. "I want to, but I don't."

"Meredith…" he ran one hand back into his hair and sighed deeply. He hated that he wasn't there to help her through this. "Your sisters aren't your father. They don't blame you for what happened to Susan, and the last time I checked, Lexie isn't constantly shadowed by the smell of gin. They just want to know you."

"But what if they don't?" she asked desperately, her voice barely above a whimper. "What if once they know me, they don't want to? What if they realize—"

"What?" he interrupted her. "What if they realize how amazing you are, to be who you are after everything you've been through?"

"Derek—" she started to protest stubbornly, and he heard the threat of tears in her voice.

"Meredith—" he retorted, at the same time that his own name was called by an approaching voice. Maggie appeared in the doorway and spotted the phone in his hand, raising an eyebrow as a devilish gleam appeared in her eyes.

"Is that her?" Maggie asked eagerly. "Is that Meredith?"

"Yes," he replied, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. "Can you give me just a minute—_Maggie!_" His sister's name came out as a bark as she wrenched the phone from his grasp.

Maggie ignored him, holding up one arm to keep him from snatching the phone back. "Meredith? Hi. This is Maggie—I'm one of Derek's sisters. It's really nice to talk to you; Derek's said such nice things about you."

"Maggie, come on," Derek growled. "This is really childish and immature, don't you think?"

"Listen, Meredith," Maggie continued, "I've got to take Derek away from you for a while so we can have dinner. I'm going to put Derek back on so he can say goodbye—like I said, it's really nice to put a voice with the name. We were afraid Derek was making you up."

Derek scowled at his sister as she returned his phone; she just smirked at him on her way back to the kitchen. "I'm sorry, Mere," he apologized immediately. "Listen to me, okay? You are a beautiful, incredible woman, and your sisters will see that. Tomorrow is going to be fine. But if you need me, call. I promised my nieces I'd take them to the zoo, but I'll have my phone with me all day."

"I'll call," Meredith promised. "Definitely after, but maybe during. Do you…you really think it's going to be okay?"

"I do," Derek assured her. "Do you want me to call again later tonight so we can talk it through?"

"No, that's okay," Meredith declined. "You have your family thing, and everyone will be over here. I think I'll be okay tonight…but if I'm not, I'll call."

Derek could accept that, and he sighed reluctantly. He didn't want to let her go; right now, in this moment, his family was as close to complete as it could get, under the circumstances, and the moment he let her hang up, he'd feel the ache of her absence. The six days separating him from her were going to rank as one of the longest weeks of his life.

"Okay," he said finally. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, then. Merry Christmas, Meredith."

"Merry Christmas, Derek."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: Lots of stress the past few weeks, but it's done. Very heavy on the dialogue and the backstory, but overall..I'm okay with it. It was necessary to get it over with so that movement can happen in the future. I hope it's not awful; it IS shorter than the last few chapters have been by about 800-1000 words. So yeah...read, hopefully enjoy, and for the record, my birthday was the 29th of September and feedback is a (free!) gift that just keeps on giving...**

Derek was a liar. Meredith became convinced of that somewhere between the fourth and fifth outfits she considered and ultimately rejected for her brunch with Lexie and Molly. Derek was a liar, and Meredith was stupid—for agreeing to the whole brunch thing in the first place, for listening to Derek, and maybe most of all, for actually _caring_ what she wore. Because—seriously—what _did_ one wear to meet the _other_ daughters of one's long-estranged father and his recently deceased wife, who one was (if unfairly) accused of killing through malpractice? It didn't seem that there _was_ a standard, appropriate outfit for that sort of function, although, if there were, Meredith were sure that Addison would have known it, because Addison possessed all the refinement and social grace that Meredith lacked, which made it that much more unbelievable that Derek's family could ever really like her, no matter how much he tried to convince her that they would. And besides, she'd already established that Derek was a liar.

He'd tried to convince her that this whole stupid fake meal (because brunch was _so_ not a real meal) with two women who happened to share half of her genetic makeup would be fine. That's what they were, after all—not her sisters. Derek had sisters. Meredith Grey was, and had always been, an only child. And it wasn't just fine—it would be _great_, he'd assured her. This was definitely not great, or even remotely fine. If things were _fine_, she wouldn't be stressing about what to wear when she knew that it didn't. freaking. matter. Except that it did, because she was trying to do this stupid sister thing. She was trying to grow and get better and be happy and heal old wounds and whatever. She needed to do this, even if it would definitely not be fine. She needed to try. If nothing else, she could just prove that Derek was the liar that he was.

She stalled until the absolute last second, when she grabbed pieces from the discard pile at random and decided to make do. Fortunately, the green sweater she pulled over her white-button front was clean, and the jeans—well, those she wasn't so sure of, but they'd do. She grabbed her phone from the charger—no way she was going to be without that lifeline to Derek, even if he was a liar—and hurried downstairs, stepping over the remnants of Izzie's Christmas the night before on her way out the door. Her stomach churned with nervous energy as she drove to the restaurant where she'd agreed to meet Lexie and Molly. And the baby. She couldn't forget the baby. If sisters weren't bad enough, they had to throw infants into the mix. Meredith was pretty sure that this one hour was going to necessitate _weeks_' worth of additional therapy sessions, and that hardly seemed worth it for two women she'd never wanted to know.

As if to prove her point that this whole ordeal was a massive waste of her time and emotional energy, Lexie and Molly weren't there when she arrived, forcing Meredith to claim a table for Grey, party of three (plus a high chair, she remembered at the last second.) It was probably a little immature and unreasonable of her to resent that they shared her name; that one nagging connection kept her from ever being able to completely deny them.

She'd never wanted siblings. Ever. Even before Thatcher had left, Meredith had known and accepted that she was an only child. She didn't remember ever being told that her mother didn't want more children; it just seemed as though she'd known it from birth. She'd liked having her father to herself, and _loved_ the rare occasions when she managed to procure some sign of affection from her mother. She liked her family just as it was—a brother or sister might mean even less time with Ellis, and when Thatcher left, that had just seemed to ensure that Meredith would always have her mother all to herself. Meredith didn't remember her mother dating, ever. She knew now that Ellis had nursed a broken heart for twenty years, but as a teenager, Meredith had simply attributed it to her mother's cold, no-nonsense nature. Men were an unnecessary complication to her life, and aside from the occasionally dinner date—business only—Ellis did not entertain a social or dating life. Siblings had never even been a possibility for Meredith, and she had been perfectly fine with that.

But then Molly had shown up, looking uncannily like Meredith, and scared and vulnerable and pregnant, and then Laura had been born and even though there hadn't been a box of unopened cards…there had been _something_. A maybe. Between Derek—who knew how to have siblings—and Susan—who knew how to have daughters and be a kind of mother Meredith had never experienced--Meredith had started to think that maybe…maybe it could happen. She wouldn't have her dad back—she knew _her_ dad ceased to exist when she was five years old—but she could have _a_ dad, and Susan had been…something altogether new and unsettling but oddly appealing, and she'd thought…maybe. But then, like everything else in her life, it had fallen apart. Too good to be true; Meredith didn't have things work out for her. Susan died, her father slapped her, and then not only had Lexie tried to pick up Derek in a bar (though, to be fair, no one had known who anyone was in that situation), but Lexie had shown up to work with her and refused to leave.

Still, she was dismayed when the first sister to walk into the restaurant was Molly. At least Lexie was halfway familiar, someone she'd dealt with, if reluctantly and in a work context. She wasn't a _total_ stranger, not like Molly and the baby. Meredith leaned over, trying to escape Molly's line of vision by hiding behind a potted topiary. Maybe if they didn't see her, they'd get another table, one without a view of the exit, which would allow Meredith the opportunity to slip out unnoticed and unscathed. Or better yet, maybe they'd just go home.

She could hear the baby babbling happily as Molly shifted her onto her hip. "I'm looking for my sisters," she was saying to the hostess. "They're supposed to be meeting me here? The last name is Grey."

Meredith rolled her eyes as the hostess eagerly volunteered that yes, she remembered seating Ms. Grey earlier, and she'd be _glad_ to take Molly to the table. Meredith had never expected herself to actually _wish_ Lexie was around, but she would gladly take Lexie's too-perky personality if it meant a common thread with the lesser-known sister. Judging from Molly's expression when she rounded the corner and saw Meredith—a flicker of panic replaced quickly by a _too_-obvious smile—Meredith wasn't the only one praying that Lexie was only steps behind the youngest sister. "Hi," Meredith said awkwardly.

Molly smiled weakly as she took her seat across from Meredith and arranged Laura in her lap. "I just talked to Lexie a few minutes ago," she offered. "She's on her way. I thought she'd be here by now, actually."

"Me too," Meredith agreed. Her eyes went to the baby, and she remembered Izzie's advice months earlier—when in doubt, talk about the baby. Laura was bundled up for the cold outside, and when Molly tugged off the knit cap, Meredith saw a faint dusting of strawberry blonde hair covering Laura's head. She usually attributed the hints of red in her own hair to Ellis, but Molly and Laura reminded her that her paternal grandmother had had red hair, too. Or so she'd been told—Thatcher's mother had died when Meredith was a baby, and she'd never even seen a picture of her grandmother that she could remember. Ellis had barely allowed pictures of Thatcher in the house, and only after Meredith had demanded them shortly after her eighth birthday.

"She's getting big," Meredith blurted, nodding at Laura. Laura stuck a chubby fist into her mouth, coating it with a thin layer of baby drool.

Molly grinned and patiently removed Laura's hand, replacing it with a pink pacifier attached to her outfit by a strap of fabric with clips on both ends. "She is. She's getting more teeth, I think. I try to keep a bib on her for the drool, but I think we still go through three or four outfits every day—"

"I um…Lexie gave me the picture of her," Meredith said. "At Thanksgiving."

"Oh, good!" Molly replied. "I wish we had been able to see you then, but…it was just…hectic, with dad and everything. It's hard, the first holiday season without Mom—" At the mention of Susan, an uneasy silence settled at the table. Molly flushed a light shade of pink and quickly exhibited that she, too, had inherited the Grey propensity for awkward babbling. "I'm sorry," she stammered, "about how Dad acted the day of my mom's funeral. I know—we know, Lexie and me—that you didn't—that it wasn't your fault. I know my mom really liked you, and she was the one who told me you were our sister—I know I should have stopped my dad from the way he acted, but I just—I'd just lost my mom and—"

"Oh, look, there's Lexie!" Meredith interrupted suddenly. Lexie looked mildly shocked to see Meredith's unprecedented enthusiasm for her arrival, but Meredith could straighten that out later if she had to. Right now, she was simply grateful for Lexie's perfect timing to stop the discussion of Susan's death before it started.

"Hi," Lexie said breathlessly as she cast a wary glance at Meredith. "Sorry I'm late. George was supposed to put the clothes in the dryer before he left for his shift this morning, but there was a power surge or something in the middle of the night, so his alarm failed and he was in a rush and forgot, so I had to dry my clothes," she paused for a split-second to take a breath, then reached out to tickle Laura's stomach. "Hello, baby girl. Have you been spending time with your Aunt Meredith?"

Molly was clearly more at ease with her sister (her _real_ sister) by her side; Meredith could almost _see_ the tension leaving her body. "We just got here a minute ago. We haven't ordered yet—it's been so long since I've been here, I don't even remember what I like--"

"The pancakes are really good," Meredith suggested, remembering her first breakfast date with Derek at one of the outside tables. "Or the omelets—they're always a safe choice."

"Oh, not for us," Molly said quickly, oblivious to Lexie tossing her dark head frantically, her brown eyes wide in panic. "We're both allergic to eggs."

"You are?" Meredith replied, frowning in confusion as she looked to Lexie, who had blushed furiously with embarrassment. "But you—"

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings," Lexie shrugged sheepishly. "It was the first thing you'd done for me like a sister, and I didn't want to mess it up—"

"You risked anaphylactic shock to impress me?" Meredith replied incredulously. "Lexie, that's incredibly stupid—"

"I was fine," Lexie insisted. "George helped give me a shot of epi once I got to work, and then the hives cleared right up—"

"_Hives_?" Meredith repeated, burying her face in her hands. God, Derek was going to eat this up when she told him. It was bad enough that she burned most things, but now there was actual proof that she was _deadly_ in the kitchen. She hadn't actually eaten her own omelets that morning, even though she'd convinced herself that avocado would go well with egg, but the fact that she'd almost killed her sister? Derek would never let her live it down.

"It's fine," Lexie assured her. "It's really not that bad. Can we talk about something else? How was your Christmas?"

Meredith didn't really do the small-talk thing, but she decided that it was better than jumping into deep, soul-searching, sisterly-bond-forming conversations with Lexie and Molly. "It was…fine," she said hesitantly. "We—my intern group—we had dinner and swapped presents and it was…fine. How was yours?"

Thankfully, that prompted Lexie and Molly to immediately begin a detailed recap of Laura's first Christmas. The appallingly adorable anecdotes carried them through the first few uncomfortable minutes of their brunch. By the time their food arrived, Molly was still laughing over the memory of Laura wearing three different bows on her head while a stray piece of tape had clung to her clothes, giving her a train of wrapping paper that had followed her as she'd crawled around Thatcher's living room. Talking about this year's Christmas inevitably sparked memories of childhood holidays for Lexie and Molly, and Meredith was more than happy to let them dominate the conversation. She was surprised that it still hurt to hear about their family traditions; since learning of their existence—and especially after working with Lexie and her seemingly eternal cheerfulness—Meredith had expected that her half-sisters had had the childhood Meredith had been cheated out of by her parents' divorce. She'd thought she'd prepared herself for the likely truth, steeled herself against the emotions such revelations might stir. Suspicion, however, was not the same as actually _knowing_ that first Lexie, and then Molly, had taken over Meredith's job as ornament hanger, chief tape dispenser, and assistant baker at Christmas. She had precious few memories of _real_ Christmases—only two, and both of them fuzzy at that—but she'd treasured those times with her father, and it hurt more than she'd imagined it would to know how seamlessly her father had transitioned to his other daughters. Obviously those memories hadn't meant as much to him, but then, she should have realized that when he'd mistaken Meredith for Molly in that photo. As if Susan would have ever let _her_ daughter wear a coat as hideous as that yellow plaid monstrosity had been.

Lexie seemed to recognize, eventually, that Meredith was growing uncomfortable with the conversation, and took the opportunity when Molly paused for a rare breath to change the subject. "George said that Dr. Shepherd went out of town?"

Meredith frowned slightly, but nodded in confirmation. "His family lives in New York. He went home to see them. He's fine. Good. Great, actually. His sisters have tons of kids so he's spending time with them, and…it's good for him."

"Dr. Shepherd?" Molly repeated, her interest clearly raised. "Is that—"

"Yes," Meredith said before Molly had an opportunity to voice the connection she'd only just made between Derek's name and the OB who had saved the life of the baby dozing in the crook of Molly's arm. "She's his ex-wife."

"Oh," was all Molly said after Lexie frantically shook her head, warning her younger sister not to pursue that particular line of thought and force Meredith to explain the circumstances of Derek and Addison's divorce. "I think I met him once," she said instead. "He's tall, I think? And this guy had like, perfect hair, I mean seriously—it was dark and thick and kind of wavy"

"Yeah. That's him," Meredith replied. Molly winced and glared at Lexie, who must have pinched her under the table. Meredith tried not to smirk; it wasn't Molly's fault that Lexie had tried to pick up Meredith's boyfriend, but Lexie seemed determined to keep Meredith from thinking that all three sisters had been attracted to the same man.

Blessedly, Molly's cell phone rang at that moment, and she glanced down at the display with a grin. "Speaking of tall, dark, and handsome, it's Eric. Would you mind if I went outside for a second to take this call? He didn't get a chance to call yesterday and I promised I'd tell him about Laura—"

"Go ahead," Lexie and Meredith said in unison.

"Thanks," Molly said, bolting up from her chair and holding Laura out to Lexie. "Would you--?"

"Give her to Meredith," Lexie shook her head. "I'm going to run to the bathroom while you're talking to Eric."

Meredith's eyes grew wide, but before she could sputter a protest, she found Laura thrust into her arms. The baby whimpered softly as her position was shifted, and Meredith shook her head earnestly—she couldn't handle Laura waking up. Molly grabbed her scarf as she hurried away from the table, flipping her phone open with an excited grin as she disappeared around the corner. Meredith looked helplessly in Lexie's direction, but Lexie's dark ponytail was already flouncing away into the crowd. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she slowly turned back to the baby and found herself staring down at the soft repose of her niece's sleeping face. Lexie probably hadn't felt so utterly incompetent the first time she'd held Laura—and it was worse, because Meredith _had_ held Laura before, but it had been as a doctor, not as an aunt. She definitely didn't know how to be an aunt, but she could manage for a few minutes, as long as Laura stayed asleep.

As though the cosmos had aligned against her, her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. With careful, deliberate movements, she managed to extract the phone and register Derek's name and number as she brought it to her ear. "Hey—" she kept a wary eye on Laura, vigilant for any signs of stirring. The prospect of talking to Derek was exciting, but he _did_ have awful timing.

""Hi!" Derek's voice was nearly drowned out by the delighted squeals of at least a half-dozen small children in the background. "How is the brunch?"

"It's…okay," Meredith sighed, forcing a hopeful smile that Derek couldn't see, but would hopefully somehow detect in her voice. "Lexie and Molly stepped away, so I'm um…holding the baby."

"Mm," Derek replied. Meredith recognized that hum, the cross between a thoughtful sigh and a purr of pleasure.

She narrowed her eyes. "What was that for?" she asked suspiciously.

"You have no idea what the thought of you with a baby does to me," Derek answered. His tone was light, playful, but it still made her heart skip a beat in a momentary flicker of panic.

"Oh," she said flatly. "Um…"

"Right," he continued, quickly realizing his misstep. "Sorry. How is she? The baby?"

"Cute," Meredith admitted. "Sleeping, and drooling a little. But cute."

"So she's like you when you're asleep, then," Derek teased.

"I do _not_ drool when I'm asleep," Meredith replied indignantly. She glanced around quickly to make sure her voice hadn't carried; thankfully, the other diners seemed not to have noticed her passionate denial of Derek's insinuation.

"Of course not," Derek agreed innocently. "I meant the cute part."

She rolled her eyes; he was trying to make her forget about the baby comment, and he was almost charming enough to get away with it. "I don't…do I?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, seriously?"

Derek laughed. "No, Meredith, you don't. So how did you wind up alone with the kid?"

"Lexie's in the bathroom, and Molly's husband called, so she ran outside to talk to him," she explained. She shifted her hold on Laura to keep her arm from losing circulation, and her fingers tingled as blood flow was restored.

"So everything's okay?" Derek asked. He didn't sound like he completely believed her, and she supposed that was fair, considering how anxious she'd been when they talked the night before.

"For now, yeah," she assured him truthfully. Other than a thousand and one tales of Christmas past, she hadn't had to deal with much or even _say_ very much. She had a feeling that might change once they'd finished eating, but maybe it would all turn out okay. Lexie hadn't acted much differently than Meredith was used to—if anything, her personality was a little stronger around Molly's more passive demeanor, but not by much. And Molly, Meredith was quickly realizing, was very much like herself. Even though Molly had dominated most of the conversation with her incessant chatter, Meredith had noticed that Molly was more reserved about her personal feelings than Lexie, and if Molly _was_ more talkative, it was only due to the largely superficial topics. Meredith was increasingly sure that Lexie, who had made no secret of wanting to be Meredith's sister from the moment they met, had been the mastermind behind this meeting. "It's…okay," she told Derek. I'll call later and tell you about it. How's the zoo?"

"Cold," Derek replied. "But it's not too crowded, and the kids are having fun. Maggie came with me to make sure I didn't lose anyone, but I think she really just wanted to get out of helping Mom clean. We're about to go through the reptile house, and I have to hold Bridget's hand. She's afraid of the snakes."

"Smart girl," Meredith said.

"You don't like snakes?" Derek laughed.

"Not really," Meredith answered. In the background, she heard a small voice demanding Derek to tell whether he was talking to Meredith. "Is that Jaime?"

"Mm," Derek confirmed. "You're all she's talked about since last night." He paused for a moment before adding thoughtfully, "What's your favorite animal?"

She hadn't been prepared for that, and frowned in confusion. "What?"

"Your favorite animal," Derek repeated. "What is it?"

"I…I don't know," Meredith admitted. It wasn't something she'd ever really thought about, and she couldn't think of any reason that Derek would need to know.

"Come on, Mere," Derek insisted playfully. "You have to have one. I'm thinking tiger. Maybe leopard. Yeah, I can definitely see you and leopard—"

She recognized the husky edge to his voice and rolled her eyes. "Derek, I really hope your mind isn't going where I think it's going," she warned. "Seriously, your nieces are with you."

"Fine," he feigned hurt with an over-exaggerated sigh. "Think about it. Call me later, but be ready to tell me your favorite animal by then."

"Whatever you say, Derek," she replied with an amused smile. She heard his nieces in the background again, begging him to get off the phone and accompany them into the serpent-filled darkness. "Go protect your nieces. I'll talk to you soon."

She had just hung up when Lexie plopped back down at the table with an eager smile. "Was that Dr. Shepherd?" she asked in a sing-song voice.

"Yeah," Meredith replied, trying to keep any trace of annoyance out of her voice. She knew Lexie meant well, but sometimes it was still difficult to forget that Lexie had tried to pick up Derek. Most of the time, Meredith thought she was over it, but she was still sometimes mildly irritated when she considered that Derek had baited her with Lexie, _tried_ to make her jealous to get attention from her. It was worse, though, when she _did_ feel a sudden surge of jealousy when she saw Lexie talking to Derek more than Meredith thought was necessary or appropriate for a work conversation. Her head knew better than to believe anything would happen, but Derek made her possessive in a very unflattering way. "Just checking in."

Lexie nodded slowly, then bit into her lower lip. "Can I…ask you something?" she asked hesitantly. "It's about work, kind of, but I'm asking as a sister."

"Um…okay?" Meredith agreed, but not without considerable reluctance of her own.

"What do you think about George?" Lexie asked. "I know he was actually in your intern year before he was in _my_ intern year, and I know you two are friends…"

Meredith blanched. "George?" she asked weakly. She'd seen the nervous, girlish grin on Lexie's face when she'd said his name, and she'd also noticed how much time Lexie spent tailing George around the hospital, but she'd been prepared to write it off as some sort of hero-worship for the intern-who-wasn't. Lexie certainly seemed predisposed to that sort of thing, given how she'd followed Meredith around like a puppy (no matter how many times Meredith had tried to kick her away) until Meredith had finally caved a little. "You…have a thing for George?"

Lexie's pale complexion flushed a deep pink. "Well…he's kind of great, don't you think?"

Meredith took a deep breath. This was _so_ not a conversation she wanted to have with _anyone_ (she'd had it with Izzie not too long ago, and was _still_ recovering from that), least of all the woman with whom she might, one day, have something resembling a sister relationship. "George is…he's very sweet," Meredith acknowledged slowly. "And he's a good friend. But Lexie…you're a nice girl. I'd hate to see you get hurt, and George wouldn't mean to, but…I don't think he knows what he's looking for…"

"I know he was married to Dr. Torres," Lexie said earnestly, "but his dad had just died, and sometimes people do stupid things and go after people they shouldn't when they're grief-stricken from burying their parents—" she stopped abruptly when Meredith shot her a warning glare and backed away from the Derek issue.

"It's not just Callie," Meredith shook her head. "There was a nurse, and Izzie, and—" She didn't want to confess her own ill-fated encounter with George, but her guilt was written on her face, betraying her to Lexie before she could think of a way out.

"_You_?" Lexie hissed, her brown eyes growing wide in disbelief. "You and George? You dated George? But I thought you and Dr. Shepherd—"

"No, I didn't date him—" Meredith said quickly. "It was one night. Derek was still married, and I was sad. I got drunk. George was there. I didn't really want it to happen, and we both knew better, but I was drunk. It was a mistake. A very, very bad mistake." She had the presence of mind not to tell Lexie that she'd _been_ drunk that night because it was the first time she'd seen Thatcher since he'd abandoned her when she was five. Somehow, she felt like that would make the revelation worse for Lexie, who was clearly reeling at the news that once again, she'd be following in her half-sister's shadow.

Lexie was speechless for a few minutes, soaking it all in and trying to process, before she frowned and sighed dejectedly. "So, you don't think I should—"

"I'm not telling you what to do," Meredith said quickly. "I'm not your—" Stupid Meredith—saying "mother" was not a very good idea. If Lexie's mother were still alive, Meredith would probably _not_ be having this very awkward conversation. "I'm not your boss. Not in your personal life. Do what you want, just—be careful."

Lexie nodded, and several moments passed in silence before she met Meredith's eyes again, shaking her head in disbelief. 'You and George? Seriously? Wow."

"Yeah," Meredith laughed uneasily.

Molly reappeared suddenly, reclaiming her seat, but not her baby. "Sorry about that. What did I miss? What are we talking about?"

"Nothing!" Meredith and Lexie insisted simultaneously, casting a secretive glance at one another. If Molly noticed that she'd been left out of something, she didn't comment.

"I was wondering…" Molly began slowly. "Did you…know about us?"

"When I was growing up?" Meredith replied. "No. My dad walked out the door when I was five years old, and I never saw or heard from him again. I found out about you when you first checked into the hospital."

"You knew, when you came to my room and we talked?" Molly asked.

"Yeah," Meredith nodded. "One of my friends told me you were there, and who you were. I didn't know if you knew and I…I don't know if I wanted you to know, so I didn't say anything—"

"We knew," Lexie interjected. "Not who you were, but we knew about you."

"Susan told me," Meredith admitted. "When…when did you find out about me?" She wasn't sure why she was doing this to herself. Finding out how much she had—or hadn't—mattered to Thatcher once he had his new family was sure to do nothing to hurt her, but Meredith wasn't a stranger to self-damaging decisions. Even if there was a good chance her heart was about to be broken again, she wanted—needed—to finally know the truth.

"I was about five when they told us," Molly replied. "Dad—he…"

"Dad drinks," Lexie took over, her lips drawing into a thin line. "I don't know if he did when he was your…before Molly and I were born, but he has as long as we can remember. It's Scotch, now, but when we were little it was gin or vodka, or at least a glass of wine with my mom."

"Mom kept him under control when she was alive," Molly added. "He wasn't…like he is now, not when he had her—"

"But he's always been a drinker," Lexie insisted, watching Meredith's face for any sign of unjustified guilt that she might have influenced Susan's death _and_ Thatcher's alcoholism. "Anyway, one day he was grading papers in the den, and Molly accidentally knocked over his drink. He yelled at her, but he didn't use her name—"

"He called me 'Meredith'," Molly finished. "Our mom turned white and Dad looked scared, too—"

"Dad went upstairs, and we asked Mom who Meredith was," Lexie remembered. "She told us not to ask again, and not to say anything to Dad. So we didn't, for a while, but then one day a few weeks later, I was looking for a pencil in his desk and I found a picture of you. I thought it was Molly at first, but your name was on the back, so I showed Molly and we took it to Mom and asked again who Meredith was."

"And then she told us about you," Molly explained. "She said that Dad had been married before and had a daughter—that we had a sister, named Meredith. She said that you lived with your mother, far away, and that your mother wouldn't let Dad see you. She said it hurt Dad to think about you, so we were never supposed to ask him about you."

"I wasn't—" Meredith started, pausing to collect a breath and still her shaking hands. "He didn't try to see me. He didn't fight for me when they got divorced. And I didn't live far away. We did move to Boston for a few years, for my mother's fellowship, but we came back when I was eight. My mother—she might not have let him see me, but he never tried. He just disappeared, and I didn't see him again until this year." She hesitated, not sure that she wanted the answer to her next question, but asked it anyway. "Did he ever…did he ever talk about me, or…?"

Lexie and Molly exchanged a wary glance. "Not…really," Lexie said gently. "He got mixed up sometimes and called Molly by your name, but…that was really it."

"He did, once," Molly disagreed. "When we had the chicken pox, Lexie, remember?" She turned to Meredith to explain. "It was the same year we found out about you. I brought home the chicken pox from school, and Lexie had somehow never had it, so we were both sick and my mom was in a panic worrying over us. They were outside our room talking, and we heard him tell her that it would be okay, because he knew what to do, since he'd gone through it before with you."

Meredith vaguely recalled her own bout with chicken pox. She'd been three, and all she really remembered was being itchy all over, and her father sitting by her bed, reading her stories and letting her have as many popsicles as she wanted, as long as she promised not to tell Ellis.

"He ran out of books to read us," Lexie continued. "So we asked him to tell us about our sister. I don't think it would have worked if we hadn't both been sick and miserable, but he gave in and told us stories about when you were a little girl. You were like a fairytale to us—we used to talk about you, just to each other, and wonder what you were like and if we'd ever meet you, and what it would be like when we did. We had all these dreams about our big sister—"

"And now you're here," Molly finished. "We were so excited when Mom told us who you were—especially me. I mean, I'd already met my sister and had a whole conversation with her, and I didn't even know it. And you'd even saved my baby—" she added, smiling fondly at Laura, who was still fast asleep in Meredith's arms.

Meredith smiled softly. She was sure that she was nothing like the fantasies Molly and Lexie had held about their sister, but they didn't seem too disappointed. And that felt—really, really nice. It was refreshing to _not_ feel like a disappointment for once. "Susan told me that he didn't want to tell you," she said. "Even after I'd met you."

Molly looked away, so Lexie spoke up instead. "I think he was ashamed," she said. "I think he knew that if we met you and got to know you, we'd find out the truth—that he hadn't really fought for you after all. He'd always tried to say that you'd grown up with your mother and that she would have poisoned you to hate him, and us, too."

Meredith bristled instinctively to protect her mother, but realized that that wasn't entirely untrue. Ellis had never talked about Thatcher, and as far as Meredith knew, her mother had never known that he'd remarried and had other kids, but Meredith _had_ been prepared to hate Lexie just because she'd had the childhood Meredith didn't. She'd even told her as much. _It doesn't take a shrink to figure out why—because our dad chose you. So I'm sure you are a very nice girl, Lexie, but I hope you can understand, you're a girl I ever wanted to have to know_. "I don't," she said. It was as close to an apology as she knew to give. "I don't hate you."

"You know, it wasn't that perfect," Lexie said softly, as though she were remembering the same conversation. "Our childhood, our family. We weren't perfect. I mean, it was really great…but we had our dirty laundry, too."

Meredith raised an eyebrow skeptically. She couldn't see squeaky-clean, perfect Susan as the type with any skeletons in her closet.

"No, really," Lexie insisted. "My mom…she was always really embarrassed when people realized that they'd only been married six months when I was born. Those premature babies who still weigh seven pounds that you hear about? I was one of those."

Married six months. Meredith had always known that Lexie was a little young for the program at Seattle Grace, but she realized that she'd never figured out exactly how old Lexie was. Molly—she should know Molly's age, she'd been a patient, but she couldn't remember. Something wasn't adding up, and it weighed heavily on her. "When were you born?" she asked, hoping that her suspicion sounded more like honest curiosity.

"June 3," Lexie replied promptly. "1983. My parents met at the university; she was our dad's teaching assistant. They always said it was love at first sight. She found out that she was pregnant around Christmas. Dad said that was the best Christmas present he'd ever had, and they got married in January."

Meredith's breath hitched in her chest, and she sensed the blood leaving her face, leaving her light-headed and dizzy. "January?" she repeated weakly.

"Yeah," Lexie nodded, completely oblivious to the fact that she'd just shattered one of the few remaining illusions Meredith had about their father and her childhood. "And then Molly was born the next April. We're only ten months apart."

Meredith felt sick. She couldn't be here anymore. She needed to get away, run away, before she completely broke down in front of sisters that she'd almost convinced herself she wanted, until ten seconds ago. She glanced at her watch and silently thanked whatever fate had finally, finally cut her a break. "I need to go," she said suddenly.

Molly and Lexie looked surprised at her unexpected announcement. "What?" Molly stammered. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Meredith attempted to reassure them with a forced smile. "I just have to be at work. My shift starts soon; I didn't realize it was so late already. Do you want Laura—or, Lexie?"

"I'll take her," Molly stood and carefully extracted her daughter from Meredith's arms. "I can't believe she's slept so soundly with you. She doesn't usually do so well with new people. She must really like you."

"She's…sweet," Meredith replied. "Thank you, for letting me hold her, and for the brunch and everything." She unzipped her purse and removed her wallet, then placed two twenties on the table. "It's on me," she said.

"Can we do this again?" Lexie asked.

"Um, yeah, sure," Meredith agreed half-heartedly as she shouldered her purse. She looked at her sisters' confused faces and offered what she hoped was a more encouraging smile. "Maybe when Eric and Derek are back in town, we can go to dinner or something—" Oh god. Eric and Derek. Derek and Eric. They freaking _rhymed_—Molly really _was_ a mini-Meredith, and now she'd committed herself to an evening with her replacements—

She excused herself after a few more awkward goodbyes and fled to the safety her car, and ultimately the sanctuary of the hospital. As she left her sisters behind, Meredith allowed herself just a few tears on the way to the hospital. She wasn't sure that she'd classify the brunch as a mistake, because Lexie and Molly really _were_ sweet girls, and they really _did_ seem to like her, but it definitely qualified as disastrous. Still, she had a twelve-hour shift to distract her, and if that didn't work, there was a brand-new bottle of tequila in her liquor cabinet waiting for her to come home. Thank god Alex had drawn her name.

Six hours later, she'd decided that downing an entire bottle of tequila was an option for old-Meredith, and even if she felt very much like the dark-and-twisty Meredith of a few months before, she was determined not to let her father take her progress from her, too. She was still miserable, and the late brunch had nothing to do with her lack of appetite as she sat alone in the hospital cafeteria, stabbing her fork into a bed of lettuce, but never bringing it to her mouth. Instead, she picked out the chicken—cold and oddly damp, although it probably hadn't been like when she'd bought it a half-hour before—and ate that with her fingers.

"What's your problem?" Cristina said bluntly, sliding her tray onto the table across from Meredith. The noise was magnified in the nearly-empty room, and Meredith flinched involuntarily.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Meredith insisted, stuffing a bite of lettuce into her mouth. "I'm fine."

"No you're not," Cristina argued as she opened her container of tuna salad. "You're sitting here pouting like someone kicked your puppy or—" she stopped briefly and groaned. "Don't tell me it's a McDreamy thing. What did he do now?"

"Nothing!" Meredith cried. "Derek and I are fine. I'm fine. It's nothing."

Cristina remained unconvinced. "You're a horrible liar."

"Fine," Meredith sighed. "I'm jealous because you got George's gift last night and I didn't."

Cristina scowled. "Seriously, what self-respecting surgeon has _plumeria_-scented soaps and lotions? Like I want to smell like a freaking flower. It just _screams_, 'Look at me, I'm a girly, flowery _nurse_!'"

Meredith didn't think it would be the opportune time to point out that she had a large selection of lavender-scented products in her own bathroom. "He tried, Cristina," she laughed. "I think he had to ask his mother for help. You _are_ kind of hard to shop for."

"So are you," Cristina retorted, "but at least Evil Spawn had some common sense. When in doubt, buy booze." She paused to study Meredith for a moment before asking, "So you're really not going to tell me what's going on, are you?"

Meredith frowned reluctantly. "Cristina—"

"Would you tell me if I were Derek?" Cristina demanded. Meredith looked away guiltily, giving Cristina the only answer she needed. "Seriously, Meredith?"

Meredith buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath. "Cristina, it's just—it's a Derek thing, okay? It's not something he did, but it's something I need to talk to him about. I can tell you later, but…I need Derek first."

"I'm supposed to be your person," Cristina muttered.

"You _are_ my person," Meredith assured her. "But Derek…he needs to be my person, too. We've talked about this, Cristina. I can't keep turning to you for everything and shutting him out. I'm dating him, not you."

"Okay," Cristina conceded. "Let me know if you change your mind. Now, about this plumeria crap…if you really want it, I'll trade you for the tequila."

Meredith grinned. "I told you last night, you're not getting my tequila. Maybe next year Alex will get your name, but I'm not trading."

"Then will you just take the stuff?" Cristina asked. "I don't want it."

Meredith shook her head. "Derek likes lavender."

"Seriously?" Cristina rolled her eyes and pretended to gag. "You're going to make me vomit."

"Give it to Izzie," Meredith suggested. "She's all flighty and flowery. I think she was eyeing it last night hoping you'd leave it by accident." She glanced down as her pager vibrated on the table. "It's Sloan," she frowned. "Sorry. I've got to go."

She threw what remained of her salad away as she left the lunchroom, and only briefly regretted the waste of five dollars. She'd probably wind up eating chips and crackers from the vending machine in a few hours, and breaking into the rest of the cake Izzie had baked for Christmas when she got home, as long as Alex didn't beat her to it. She found Mark standing at the second-floor nurse's station, occupying his wait by flirting with the young nursing student manning the desk.

"Ready to scrub in, Grey?" he asked.

"Of course," she answered, frowning slightly in confusion. She'd spent most of the day rounding on post-op patients and rewriting Mark's notes for his dictations, which she knew he wouldn't get around to for another week. She hadn't expected him to actually cut today; she couldn't imagine any pressing plastic surgery that just _had_ to be performed the day after Christmas. "Which patient…?"

"Mrs. Calloway," Mark replied, handing her the chart. "She's your age, married to the sixty-three year old CEO of one of Seattle's largest banks. Here to get her Christmas present, although I'm not sure if it's _her_ present or Mr. Calloway's."

Meredith glanced over the chart and then looked back to Mark in disbelief. "Breast implants. Seriously? You're telling me this woman _had_ to have implants the day after Christmas?"

"Hospital's open," Mark shrugged. "And she was very specific about wanting them today so she can still make her New Year's Eve party. But if you'd rather be judgmental than scrub in—"

"No, I'm in," Meredith assured him quickly.

"Good," Mark nodded. "Go make sure OR 2 is ready, then scrub in."

Meredith wasn't sure whether scrubbing in with Mark was a blessing or a curse, considering her mood today. Any time in the OR was good, but Mark rarely let anyone else _do_ anything, unless he stood to gain something from it. Since Meredith had seen the Chief leave at least an hour before, she doubted that Mark was going to exhibit any sort of Christmas spirit. Then again, she doubted that she was in a fit mental state to cut even if he let her, and _that_ was the real problem. She'd done her best to push the information she'd learned during her brunch with Lexie and Molly to the back of her mind, and so far, she'd done a decent job of ignoring it and avoiding the headache of processing it. Stuck in an OR with nothing to do but stand and watch Mark do his work—and not a surgery she was particularly interested in at that—she was afraid that pretending like her world hadn't been fundamentally rattled just hours before wasn't going to be so easy.

Her suspicions proved correct. She managed well enough for the first half-hour of surgery, but after Mark stopped talking, effectively ending his teaching of the procedure, Meredith couldn't stop her mind from wandering. Everything made so much more sense now, but for the first time in her life, she wished that she still had the unanswered questions rather than the certainty of the truth. The truth hurt like hell.

Thatcher and Susan had married in January. That fact alone meant that Thatcher and Ellis must have started divorce proceedings months before Meredith knew anything was different, months before he moved out. Why had he stayed, then? For her? She didn't have to ask why he ultimately left. Lexie. She'd never realized the blunt truth in her accusations that her father had chosen Lexie instead of her. She'd always meant it in the sense that he left Meredith first, and then Lexie had come along at some point later. But it was worse than that—there _had_ been an actual choice, between his living daughter and the one Susan was carrying, and Meredith had lost. It didn't answer why he'd bothered sticking around the months before the divorce was finalized, if he'd already started on his new life with Susan.

She remembered Molly saying something once, something about Lexie being the favorite. If it had been anyone else, Meredith would have brushed it off, said that it was normal (or so she'd heard) for siblings to think that another was the parents' favorites. Ellis's favorites had always been Meredith's friends, a trend that proved true even days before her death when she praised Cristina for her motivation and determination in one breath and denounced Meredith's unspectacular life in the next. But knowing what she knew now—she believed it. Thatcher had called Molly by Meredith's name, and Molly was so much like Meredith, both in looks and seemingly in manner, she wasn't surprised that Molly had never quite lived up to Thatcher's expectations. Lexie looked nothing like Meredith; she would have escaped the constant comparisons to the first-born. Meredith was sure that Molly was at least a close second in the favorite daughter competition, and probably viewed as the improved version of Meredith. All of the sweet little girl, with none of the dark and twisty caused by Thatcher and Ellis.

Knowing what she did now _did_ tell her why three months after Thatcher left, after _it_ happened, Meredith's grandmother had come home suddenly from her trip to Australia to stay with her. It had been years before Meredith realized that Ellis hadn't _really _gone on vacation for those two months, but once she'd gotten older and understood more about how custody and child protective services worked, she'd wondered why her father hadn't stepped in to take her. Now she knew, and it made her angrier than any other possibility she'd ever considered. He _had_ to have been notified of what happened, at least enough to know that Meredith couldn't be alone with Ellis, and he _had_ to have rejected her. Again. For Lexie. He hadn't even cared enough to step back into her life after _it_ happened—and why should he have cared? She was Ellis's daughter. Sure to become nothing but a poisonous woman like her mother. Nothing like the sweet, wholesome child that Susan was just weeks away from bringing into his world.

It would be so easy to hate them. Thatcher for abandoning her and making it impossible to feel safe again. Susan, for taking Thatcher away in the first place, and then dying and driving a wedge between them again. Lexie, for being the final impetus Thatcher needed to leave Ellis and leave Meredith. Molly, for being the Meredith that got to have a father. Laura—well, not her. She couldn't hate Laura. She couldn't really hate Lexie and Molly either. Or Susan, because Susan had tried to right a wrong that Meredith hadn't even fully understood at the time. It all came back to Thatcher, and Meredith was forced to wonder if the father she'd adored as a little girl, treasured in her precious few memories of him, had really been the weak, spineless man her mother had always said he was. He shouldn't have left her. Even if he hadn't wanted to raise her anymore, there should have been a box of cards, a handful of letters, _something_. He should have fought for her—but he hadn't. She hadn't been worth it.

By the time the surgery was over, Meredith had worked herself into an emotional wreck. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, and she was thankful that her mask covered the lower half of her face and kept anyone from seeing the ugly contortions of her mouth and lips as she struggled not to cry. She refused to break down in front of her colleagues, especially in front of Mark, but _god_ she needed a break and a good cry. As they left the operating theater to scrub out, Mark leaned close and lowered his voice so only Meredith could hear. "You okay, Grey?"

"Fine," she replied, nodding her head adamantly. "Just having trouble with my contacts."

"You don't wear contacts, Grey," Mark pointed out. "Have you talked to Derek today?"

"Um, once, this morning," Meredith said as she lathered her hands with a fresh bar of soap. "He was with the kids at the zoo."

"Go call him," Mark told her.

"What?" Meredith looked at him in surprise. "I…I can't."

"Why not?" Mark retorted. "He's still awake, trust me. When you get that family together, no one's asleep at this hour. Especially once the kids have new toys."

She didn't know how to make him understand that if she called Derek now, she was going to fall apart. She wanted—needed—to talk to him, but if she did, she needed time. She couldn't start telling him what happened only to be called away in the middle of their conversation. "I just…I have post-op and—"

"I'll cover my own patients for a while," Mark offered.

Meredith looked at him doubtfully. "You? Do your own patient care?"

He grinned playfully. "Call it a Christmas miracle. I'll cover you for an hour. Go call Derek before you start crying. I don't deal well with crying women, and you're no use to me anyway until you're over whatever your problem is."

She rolled her eyes, turning away quickly when she realized that a tear had fallen to brush it away. She didn't have to be told twice, and quickly locked herself in the nearest empty on-call room. She kicked off her shoes and curled up on the lower bunk as she dialed Derek's number and listened to it ring. With each passing second that he didn't answer, her heart sank a little more. "Damn it, Derek, pick up," she muttered under her breath. The final blow came when his voicemail picked up. The recorded version of his voice was _not _what she wanted to hear.

She took a deep breath, trying to erase any hint of tears from her voice as she left her message. "Hey, it's me. I was hoping I might catch you before you went to bed. Can you…can you call me when you get this? Please? I'll be up for a while so…yeah. Just call."

She flipped the phone shut and let her head fall back against the wall with a soft thud. It didn't hurt. Being reminded of how little she mattered—that hurt. She sniffled softly and didn't resist when her tears made another bid for escape. Just before she completely let her defenses down and succumbed to ugly crying, her phone lit up and vibrated in her hand. She didn't bother checking the display before she answered; she knew. "Derek?"

"Hey!" his voice was happy, eager—the complete opposite of how she felt. "Sorry I missed your call. I was helping Nancy carry her girls out to the car."

"It's not too late to call, is it?" Meredith asked. If he was tired, wasn't going to make it through this talk, there was no point in even starting. "I was worried—"

"No, no, it's fine," he assured her quickly. "We've been trying to figure out where to go for Julie's birthday dinner on the thirtieth. Nancy goes back to work tomorrow, so she's just now leaving. Everyone else is getting settled for the night. I'm all yours."

"Good. I—" Meredith started.

"Did you think about what I asked?" he interrupted. "Your favorite animal?"

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. God, he was so brainless sometimes—how could he not hear how upset she was? "I don't—no, Derek, I didn't, I—"

"Meredith, you were supposed to—" he scolded teasingly.

"Sorry, I guess I just forgot," she said impatiently. "How was your day with your nieces?"

"It was good," he said simply. His voice had changed, taken on a more concerned edge. He'd finally caught on. "They enjoyed it. Do you want to tell me what's going on with you?"

"Cristina's mad at me again," she said, even though it wasn't completely true. Cristina was actually fine with her. A little perturbed and put-out maybe, but overall fine.

"What did I do this time?" Derek asked dryly.

"You made me want to talk to you," Meredith laughed weakly.

"Mm, well, I won't apologize for that," he replied. She could hear the sad smile in his voice, and he sighed softly. "Mere…what's wrong?"

She didn't know how to begin telling him. Everything in her head was such a tangled mess, she had no clue how to begin unraveling the separate threads to show him. "Lexie is twenty-three."

"Yeah," he said slowly, trying to follow her line of thought. "She's young for the program, but I heard she graduated early—"

"Derek, she's twenty-three," Meredith repeated insistently. "I'm twenty-eight."

"There are five years between you—" Derek observed, still trying to decipher Meredith-speak and figure out what, specifically, was bothering her.

"My dad left when I was five, Derek," she blurted, unable to wait for him to put the pieces together on his own. "Susan was already pregnant when he left. He married her and they had Lexie. He didn't fight for me because he didn't need me. He already had Lexie to take my place."

She heard him let out a long, deep sigh. "Oh, Mere…" he whispered. He didn't say anything more, and she didn't need him to. Now that she'd begun, the words flowed much more freely.

"Lexie and Molly…they said that Thatcher and Susan's anniversary is in January," she continued.

She knew he'd recognize the significance of that, and he didn't disappoint her. "Please tell me your father didn't leave you on your birthday," he muttered.

"It wasn't my birthday…" she shook her head. "Not exactly."

"When was it?" Derek's voice was low, full of anger, but not at her.

"Christmas," she admitted as she drew her knees to her chest and hugged them close with her free arm.

"Son of a—" Derek snarled. She heard a dull bang on the other end of the line, and wondered what he'd just thrown across the room. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't think it mattered."

"The hell it didn't _matter_, Meredith!" he snapped, making her wince at the harshness in his voice.

"It was a long time ago, Derek," she said defensively. "There was no reason to tell you—"

"You didn't want me to go," he realized suddenly. "You were so upset about me leaving for New York. You thought I'd abandon you like your father did."

"No, I—" she started to protest, but stopped when she realized she'd be lying. It _had_ brought up those old insecurities when she'd thought about him leaving, but she'd never _really_ thought that he'd stay gone.

"I told you I'd stay if you wanted me to, Meredith," he reminded her. He laughed incredulously. "God, at _Christmas_? How could he leave you at Christmas?"

"I didn't know this was going to happen, Derek!" she cried. "I thought I'd be fine. How was I supposed to know that I was going to find out that my dad had already replaced me before he even left?"

He took a deep breath and they were both silent for a few moments. Finally, after he'd calmed himself sufficiently, he spoke again. "Tell me what happened," he said gently.

"I just did," Meredith replied. "Lexie and Molly told me—"

"No, not today," he interrupted. "Tell me what happened when you were a little girl."

Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she wiped her face with her sleeve. "I was four. Almost five. My dad left about a week before Christmas," she began. "My mom told me he was on a business trip. He didn't go out of town for his research often, but it had happened before, so I believed her. He called a few days after he left and promised me he'd be home for Christmas." She remembered insisting that her mother help her with the advent calendar her grandmother had sent, but she hadn't been counting days until Santa, but days until Thatcher came home. "He came back Christmas afternoon and my mom went back to the hospital. Lexie said they Susan found out she was pregnant around Christmas. She said Thatcher called her the best Christmas gift he'd ever gotten."

"Meredith…" Derek started sympathetically.

"Susan…Susan apologized to me, once. She said that she should have made my dad fight harder for me, but she didn't because everything was new," Meredith told him. "I thought she just meant…them, their relationship…but now I know she meant Lexie. He didn't fight for me because he had Lexie, and I wasn't worth the effort—and Susan…I'm sure she didn't want a stepdaughter around her new baby—"

Derek sighed again, but he seemed speechless about what she'd just told him, focusing instead on something she'd mentioned before. "What did you mean when you said 'not exactly'?"

"What?" she frowned.

"I asked if he left on your birthday and you said 'not exactly'," he reminded her. "What did you mean?"

She wished that she didn't have to tell him this part, didn't have to relive this memory again. "He left the second time about a week after Christmas. They told me he had another business trip. He called me every couple of days and promised he'd be back in time for my birthday," she confessed, pausing as her breath caught in her throat and a small sob escaped. "He'd promised to take me to the park for my birthday, and I woke up and he wasn't there. I cried, so my mom took me instead, and I was so excited…my mom hardly ever took me to the park, and I remember feeling so special because it was my birthday and my mom was there to watch me on the carousel…it almost made up for my dad being gone."

"And he was with Susan?" Derek concluded, his voice dark with an underlying rage that would terrify her if she were the target of it.

"I guess so," she shrugged helplessly. "He showed up a few days after my birthday and took me for ice cream and gave me a present and said he'd see me soon. And that was it for the next twenty years."

"He left you on your birthday…" Derek muttered in disbelief. "God, Meredith, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," she whimpered, even though they both knew it wasn't.

"It's not okay," he argued. "Meredith, you deserved so much better than that. I just…I don't understand how a father could do that to his child, and…" She knew why he had such a hard time understanding it. _He_ had had a father who adored him, who hadn't had a _choice_ in whether to leave him and his sisters.

"He had Lexie and Molly," Meredith said, as though that explained everything—and maybe it did. It may not make much sense, but she couldn't imagine that there was _any_ reason that would justify what he'd done. " And you know…I want to hate them, Derek. I want to hate them for having what I didn't, but I can't, because…they're actually pretty great, and what happened isn't _their_ fault—"

"It's not yours either—" Derek said firmly.

"Then whose is it?" she cried. "He didn't love me enough to fight for me, Derek…"

"That's _his_ problem, Mere," Derek insisted vehemently. "He was a coward. It wasn't you. You were five years old, Meredith. There was nothing you could have done. You were completely innocent. You were a _child,_ and you suffered for your parents' actions, and that's not fair—"

"But I—"

"No buts, Meredith," he cut her off. "You are…you are incredible, and irreplaceable, and…damn it, Mere—" he broke off sudden with a frustrated groan, and she heard heavy objects being shuffled around and something that sounded suspiciously like a zipper.

"What are you doing?" she asked fearfully.

"I'm packing," he muttered. "I'm coming home."

"What?" she yelped. "No—Derek!" She hadn't meant for this to happen. She'd just wanted to talk to him, open up to him, like she'd promised. She hadn't meant to ruin his vacation, his visit with his family that he'd wanted so badly--

"Meredith, I can't do this," he murmured, and for the first time, she thought she heard tears in his voice, too. "I can't sit here and listen to you cry because you feel like you've been abandoned again—"

"I don't!" she assured him.

"He left you at Christmas, Meredith. And I got on a plane and did the same damn thing—" Derek was as angry with himself as he was at Thatcher, and she felt awful for making him feel that way.

"But you're coming back!" she protested. He'd left, yes, but surely he could see the difference in what he'd done and what Thatcher had done. Derek _loved_ her, and he wasn't staying gone--

"Yes, I'm coming back," he agreed. "As soon as I call the airlines, I'm on the next flight back—"

"Derek, no, don't—I didn't tell you to make you leave your family," she pleaded. "I'm okay, I promise. Don't—don't come back early for me, please—"

Derek wasn't swayed. "Meredith, you're upset, and there's nothing I can do for you here. If you need me—"

"I don't—" she started to argue again, but stopped when she realized how he might take her words. She had to be careful, had to make sure she didn't say anything, no matter how upset she was, that would hurt both of them worse. "It's not that I don't need you. I'm not trying to push you away. I just—I'm okay. I'll…be okay. I needed to talk to you, and now I am, and I'm a little better. I don't want you to cut your trip short because of me."

"But I _will_—" he offered.

"I know," she nodded. "I know you will. But I can't let you—I'd feel guilty, Derek."

"I _do_ feel guilty, Meredith," he replied desperately. "I feel guilty _now_."

"Don't," she said. "I'm okay. I'm…I'm going to be okay."

The sounds of clothes flying across the room into his suitcase stalled, leaving only the hiss of his sigh into the phone. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," she said firmly. She wasn't. There was probably very little that would have made her happier than to have Derek back with her in a few hours, but she knew equally well that she wouldn't be able to forgive herself from pulling him away from his family. It would be selfish of her, and she didn't want to be selfish anymore. She'd have him back soon, and she'd made it twenty-three years since her father left her alone. She might not like it, but she could make it another few days.

"Are you _sure_?" he asked again. "Don't be a martyr, Meredith. My family will understand."

"I'm sure," she lied. "Can we…can we talk about something else? To take my mind off of it?"

He obliged her and pretended not to know that she was lying, and for about fifteen minutes, he told her about his afternoon with the kids at the zoo, how Bridget had screamed at a giant python but Jaime had not been squeamish at all about touching a corn snake a keeper had held on display. He pretended not to notice the sniffles and whimpers as she finished crying and composed herself, and told her instead how he'd been suckered into pulling out the Visa in the zoo's overpriced gift shop, because each of the children had found a stuffed animal they just couldn't live without, and he'd figured it was the least he could do after being absent in their lives for most of the last two years. When he thought that she'd had enough time to calm down, he gingerly approached the topic of the brunch.

"Other than…what you found out about your dad, was today okay, with your sisters?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied truthfully. "They're nice. They talk a lot and they're a little too normal to be related to me, but…they're nice. And I didn't scare them away. I um, I might have also promised that we'd go to dinner with them sometime."

"We?" Derek laughed. "As in you and me?"

"It seemed like the quickest way to get them to let me leave," Meredith explained. "But you did say you'd be my wingman."

"I did," Derek agreed. "I'll go, no problem."

"Thanks," Meredith replied. She thought about Laura, beautiful, sweet, unblemished Laura, and smiled. "The baby likes me," she said hopefully. "She slept in my arms from the time I talked to you until I left. Molly said she doesn't do that with everyone."

"Well that's something," Derek said. "Babies are good judges of character."

"Oh!" Meredith said suddenly. "That reminds me. Can you keep a secret?"

"Of course," he promised. "Have I told anyone about you being in therapy?"

"Okay, fine," Meredith continued. "Lexie has a thing for George."

"Seriously?" Derek chuckled. "Why don't you give her Finn's number? You two seem to have similar taste. Now it's George, and before that it was me—"

"Shut up," Meredith interrupted him. "We don't talk about that."

"I thought we were supposed to be talking about our issues?" he pointed out.

"Derek, I just told you some of my darkest childhood memories that I've never shared with anyone," Meredith reminded him. "We are talking. But I'm picking my battles. You were a jerk for telling me about Lexie the way you did, but I can forgive you for it. We don't have to talk that one to death." She paused and a smile split her face. "Besides, I'm your girl from the bar. Just me. No one else."

"Mm," he hummed happily. "You are my girl from the bar."

Before Meredith could reply, she felt her pager buzzing against her hip. Mark's Christmas spirit apparently did last _exactly_ one hour, and not a second longer. "Derek," she groaned, "I have to go. Mark's paging me."

"Okay," he sighed reluctantly. "I'm not unpacking my suitcase, Meredith. I'll call tomorrow, and if you're still this upset, I'm coming home."

"Okay," she agreed. "I really do think I'm going to be okay, though," she added, and this time, she felt like it could actually be true. "Thank you, for talking me down and for not abandoning me again."

Even if she couldn't see his face, she knew he was smiling, and that offered all the reassurance she needed. "Hang in there, Meredith," he murmured. "I'll be home soon. I promise."


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Hey look, I finally finished this chapter. It's light on the Mer/Der, heavy on the pouty Derek. I promise to make up the Mer/Der in the next chapter. Thanks for your incredible patience and dedication to this fic and hanging in there while I take forever to update! As always, any feedback you should choose to offer is greatly appreciated.**

Derek and uncertainty never mixed well. True, there was always a certain degree of randomness and chance in his line of work—science, medicine, and especially the brain were rife with uncharted waters, unanswered questions. He could handle that sort of unknown, most of the time. His training in medical school and his residency had provided him with a roadmap, an outline of how to solve a problem or seek an answer. It was in his personal life that Derek couldn't stand to not be in the know, to feel helpless and torn and utterly lost. There was no atlas to navigating a relationship with Meredith Grey—by her own admission, he was the first to attempt this particular undertaking, and _that_ was little short of terrifying. Maybe it was because he'd already experienced two unsuccessful attempts at a relationship with her, but Derek was petrified of failing her again. He was determined to make all the correct choices with her this time around, to finally get it right—but with Meredith, there were simply no easy answers.

His heart screamed at him to go home, back to Seattle, back to Meredith. He missed her, he wanted to be with her, and in his most honest moments, he knew that he needed her as much—if not more—than he suspected she needed him. But she told him no, stay. It didn't surprise him. Meredith was very rarely selfish, even when it meant that she'd be hurt. If this had happened months before, he'd have thought that she was pushing him away, shutting him out and dwelling in her pain alone, but he was trying to believe her now when she assured him that she did want him, just not at the expense of his family. Sometimes, he wished she were a little less selfless. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so guilty or selfish for wanting to flee his family—again—to go back to her.

His suitcase was still packed, sort of. It had been four days since he'd thrown his clothes into it, but it seemed pointless to unpack it now. He had Julie's birthday dinner in a few hours, and then New Year's Eve tomorrow night, and then his flight would leave around noon on New Year's Day. Less than forty-eight hours in New York. A few more until he could see Meredith again. The clothes were staying packed. He'd have to repack, he admitted. They were hardly in any state for the suitcase to actually zip shut. Half of them were tossed in haphazardly, resting exactly where he'd thrown them in his frantic packing. The other half were fine—Kate had come through his room at some point—probably when he'd gone with Julie and Maggie to take their girls to the park yesterday—and plucked the dirty, wrinkled, or otherwise questionably-clean clothes off the floor, from behind the chair, and under the bed. He'd returned to find them freshly laundered, precisely folded, and neatly placed in his suitcase. He'd been more than a little guilty at the idea of his mother doing his laundry as though he were still seventeen years old, and slightly embarrassed when he considered that she must wonder if he was living so sloppily in Seattle. He didn't know how to tell her that he was so worried about Meredith that the inner maelstrom of emotion had manifested in the very outward, tangible mess of his surroundings.

Derek had probably spent more time on the phone with her in the past four days than he had in the entire time he'd known her. They weren't phone people. They didn't have a history of being a couple that communicated; he was happy that the latter was on its way to changing. He'd prefer that it didn't have to happen by phone. He'd lost track of how many times they'd spoken, but he figured at least three or four times a day. Sometimes more. Often enough that his sisters had, for the most part, decided that it wasn't even fun to tease him anymore. They wouldn't understand; there was no way to explain how even the slightest change in Meredith's tone, the most subtle inflection to her voice, could indicate a major storm looming imminent on the horizon. She _seemed_ okay when he talked to her, or at least tried her best to convince him that she was.

His mind wavered daily. When he talked to her, could actually hear her voice, he believed that she was okay. Even if their conversation was a quick five minutes before her shift began or during her lunch break—and it often was—she managed to reassure him that he hadn't broken her heart by _not_ flying back to her side immediately after he'd learned what happened at the brunch. They'd talk for as long as she could, he'd promise to call again soon, and when they hung up, he'd be fine…for about half an hour, and then the doubt crept back in. Had she really sounded okay? What had she meant by a certain cryptic comment? She had hesitated just a second too long when he asked whether she'd seen Lexie, hadn't she? The questions plagued him, and by the time they'd have their next talk, he'd have practiced the speech to tell her that no matter what she said, he was coming home early. Sometimes she'd let him say his piece, but more often, she'd shut him down before he could get started and make him promise again not to cut his time with his family short for her benefit. He'd promise, and they'd talk, and then they'd hang up, only for the cycle to begin again, repeating indefinitely because—not for the first time—Derek didn't know _what_ to do to make her happy.

If it were about making himself happy, he'd have been in Seattle four days ago. He hated that he and Meredith had been back together two weeks, and he'd been away from her for more than half of that time. If this was the honeymoon phase, the grace period where he was allowed to just _be_ with her, without the intense discussion and dissection of their problems, he wanted to take advantage of it _with_ her—not in short bursts of conversation over the phone. He wanted to _see_ the words leaving her mouth, not just hear them to feel her skin under his fingers, her lips against his (because this cheek-kissing nonsense was over the _second_ he saw her again), wanted the warmth and weight of her body against him. He missed the faint scent of lavender he always sought in her hair and the way her fingers tangled in his curls and the soft rush of her breath on his neck when she leaned into him and sighed in contentment. He just wanted _her_, damn it. The few days he'd had before he left for New York just weren't enough, and the two days left seemed like too much. When it came to Meredith, Derek was impatient and, it seemed, insatiable. There was no such thing as enough Meredith, but what he had now, with her thousands of miles away…it didn't even come close to being sufficient.

He suspected that part of his frustration today stemmed from the fact that he _hadn't_ been able to even hear her voice all day. He knew she'd gotten in late the night before—she'd called right before she went to bed—so he'd skipped their call this morning, allowing her to (he hoped) sleep in a little. Derek's own morning had been hectic, to say the least. Kathleen and Maggie had gone back to their own homes a few days earlier, but Nancy and her family had driven in from Connecticut the night before and stayed at Kate's in order to make their ten A.M. appointment at the photographer's.

If anything had ever made Derek reconsider how badly he wanted children, their experience that morning at the photographer's studio had been it. To be fair, it was never easy to arrange two dozen people into anything resembling a cohesive unit, and a minor miracle to have everyone facing the same direction at the exact moment the shutter clicked. When Derek allowed for the vast number of children in the family, he had to admit that nothing short of divine intervention could have made the morning go off without a hitch. Apparently, God had been busy with more pressing matters—peace in the Middle East, famine, curing cancer, that sort of thing. It had started with Kathleen's youngest son, who had pulled faces, pinched Maggie's girls, and remained generally uncooperative despite pleading, bribing, scolding, and the threat of being grounded until his thirtieth birthday. By the Miles was reined in (after John had taken him into the hall for what was apparently a very convincing discussion), Nancy's twins were well overdue for their nap, and quickly grew fussy and whiny. Somehow, Nancy had managed to placate them long enough for the photographer to capture a few shots that would be "passable", after which the girls promptly dissolved into screaming, tearful tantrums.

They were both asleep now, laid across Derek's bed with Nancy, who had retired with a cool washcloth to lay across her forehead, claiming a migraine and sheer exhaustion. Most of the ten-and-under crowd had taken refuge in the basement, where they were officially watching a movie, but more likely taking naps of their own (though they'd never admit it, if pressed.) It was probably best that way, Derek thought. He loved his family, but he needed some peace and quiet after the disaster their morning had been—especially considering that it was only _after_ he and his sisters had wrangled all fourteen children back to Kate's house that he realized he'd missed Meredith's call. He'd barely registered the time she'd called—nearly two hours earlier, which he suspected was right in the middle of Miles's antics—and called her back immediately, only to reach her voicemail. Dissatisfied with that, he checked his own messages and felt his heart sink as he learned that she'd called hoping to talk for a few minutes before she went into a six-hour surgery. She'd call him when she was through, she'd promised, and discouraged him from calling until he'd heard from her—there would likely be complications with the surgery, and she didn't know when she'd be out.

He needed her to call soon. Julie's birthday dinner was only a few hours away, and he was afraid if he didn't talk to Meredith before then, it would be late that night before he'd have another opportunity to hear her voice. He wasn't sure that he could wait that long. But if her surgery was supposed to last six hours, and had started that morning, it should be over in about half an hour, and so Derek sat at the kitchen table, staring at his phone resting on the placemat before him and willing it to ring. So far, it wasn't working.

Derek wondered if maybe her surgery was already over, and she'd gotten distracted with post-ops and charting and forgotten to call. It wouldn't be unheard of for Meredith to be a little absent-minded. Maybe if he called, she'd pick up—or at least be reminded that he was waiting to talk to her. It was worth a try, at least. He wasn't surprised—but no less disappointed for it—when the call went straight to her voice recording. Dejected, he tossed the phone back onto the table and watched, unconcerned, as it slid across the smooth surface and stopped just before dropping over the edge.

"Talking to Meredith?"

He looked up suddenly at the sound of Kathleen's voice and frowned slightly. "No," he sighed. "She's in surgery."

"Poor baby," Kathleen grinned teasingly at her younger brother. "You haven't gotten your requisite three hours on the phone with her today?"

"Not funny, Kathy," Derek shook his head. "She's…it's just…not funny."

"You know," Kathleen continued, either oblivious to or simply nonplussed by Derek's warning tone. "I didn't expect this from you. From what Nancy said, Meredith is the polar opposite of Addison. I didn't think you'd go for another woman this needy. I don't remember you spending this much time on the phone with Addie, and I love her, but god knows she was the picture of high-maintenance—"

He started to protest, to insist that Meredith wasn't needy—but she sort of was. Not in the way Kathleen was thinking, not demanding and monopolizing his time and attention, but she did require kid gloves sometimes. "It's me," he said instead. "Meredith hates the phone. I'm the one that needs to talk to her—"

Kathleen smiled sympathetically as she took a Diet Coke from the fridge and sat down across from Derek. "You're really crazy about her, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Derek chuckled softly. "Crazy is…definitely one way to put it." Nothing about Meredith was normal or predictable. He never knew what to expect next, could never imagine how things could get more complicated, but somehow, something always happened to surprise him.

Whether it was her role as the oldest sibling or her profession as a psychiatrist, Kathleen wasted no time in skirting around a question she wanted answers. It was one of her more endearing qualities, unless you were at the other end of her interrogations, and then her eerily powerful ability to draw out answers became something more intimidating than admirable. "Are you going to marry her?"

He felt as though he'd had this conversation with nearly every female member of his family over the past week. He wondered how Kathleen had missed it and if he could have avoided it all by printing up a handout outlining his relationship with Meredith and attaching it to everyone's Christmas gift. "When she's ready," he nodded with certainty. "She's not right now, but she knows—she knows that I want to. We'll get there."

"Are we going to meet her before then?" Kathleen asked.

"I hope so," Derek replied. "I don't know when, so don't ask that. I'm not subjecting her to my family yet--"

"God, Derek, you make us sound like a coven," Kathleen rolled her eyes. "We're not going to boil her alive in our cauldrons—"

Derek laughed. "Well, Grandma did call you and Maggie a pair of banshees," he teased. "Can you blame me for wanting to save Meredith from you?"

"That was Halloween, Derek," Kathleen reminded him. "You were what, five years old then? I can't believe you remember that."

"I was six," he corrected her. "It was the last Halloween before Dad died."

The smile fell from Kathleen's face and she stared at the beads of condensation beginning to run down her can of soda. "It was thirty years ago in September," she said softly.

He hadn't forgotten. He wished that he had. "I know," he sighed. "How…how was Mom?" He hadn't called to check on his mother on the anniversary of his father's death; he was a pathetic excuse for a son. He remembered that day; he woken up that morning knowing what it was. He'd mostly been preoccupied those days with Meredith, trying to do something, anything, to spark a breakthrough with her. A night spent in her bed, a hint that she at least didn't _want_ to make him leave, a sign that she cared about him for more than the sex that had replaced any hope of conversation or intimacy. He hadn't gone home with her that night, and he'd ignored her when she'd paged him to their on-call room in the middle of the day. She hadn't known that the day had any significance for him, and he'd taken advantage of it to pick a fight with her. It wasn't a serious one, but he still wasn't proud of himself. She'd come to his office when he hadn't answered her page, and if she hadn't known _why_, she'd at least known that he wasn't having a good day, and she'd been determined to try cheering him up the best way she knew how. He remembered vividly how she'd settled in his lap, left a wet trail of kisses along his jaw and neck, slipped her hands under his shirt, scratched her nails gently down his stomach as she'd reached for the drawstring of his pants. He remembered how hurt she'd been when he'd pushed her away, standing up suddenly in a move that had nearly sent her sprawling unceremoniously to the floor. She'd stared at him, eyes wide and uncertain (but certainly wounded), and frowned in confusion when he growled, "Not today, Meredith," and all but ordered her from his office. He'd known then that he should have told her, should have explained, but he hadn't. Meredith had started to ignore him the next day at work, but when he'd finally cornered her just before lunch in the on-call room, he'd had his mouth over hers before she could protest, and she didn't ask questions when he worked his hand into her pants. After that, he'd decided that she'd forgiven him, and it seemed pointless to tell her that his lashing out had had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his father. She hadn't had a monopoly on the right to use sex to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, after all.

"She had a hard time," Kathleen admitted, confirming that Derek had been an unspeakably insensitive ass to both Meredith _and_ his mother that day. "It was worse last year," she shrugged, as though that would make Derek feel less guilty, considering that he hadn't called home then either—with Addison's arrival in Seattle just days before, he was pretty sure he'd spent that anniversary trying to convince Meredith not to hate him. "We took her to dinner and then we went to see _Wicked_—took some of the kids with us. You know Mom—give her some time with the grandkids, and she'll be fine."

"Mom's been on my case about grandkids," Derek said. Kathleen looked at him skeptically; he had no illusions that he'd fooled her with his abrupt subject change. They both knew that he had no desire to discuss whether he'd ever have children with Meredith, and _every_ desire to avoid talking about their father.

Kathleen let him slide, this time, and didn't call him out for yet again refusing to talk about their father. "I'm guessing that if Meredith's not ready to meet us, she's not ready for kids either," she guessed. "Do you mind if I ask why she's so reluctant to meet us? We _are_ your family, Derek—does she not realize that we come as a package deal?"

"I think the problem is that she _does_ know you come with me," Derek grinned. "I'm trying to convince her that you're not all like Nancy, but she's…skittish about families anyway."

Kathleen nodded slowly, and Derek could see her slipping into psychiatrist mode. "Nancy said that Meredith's mother is Ellis Grey."

"Was," Derek agreed. "Her mother died this spring."

"That must have been hard on her," Kathleen said gently.

"It was," Derek replied. "And then—" he paused and rubbed his hands over his face as he took a deep breath. He didn't want to betray Meredith's trust by sharing too much personal information, but it was tempting to unload some of his concerns to Kathleen. Aside from Meredith, he didn't really have anyone. Mark, but he was reluctant to encourage Mark to become too involved in his relationship with Meredith. Bailey, maybe, but she had her own marriage to save, and generally only begrudgingly listened to him whine; it probably wasn't a good idea to raise questions about Meredith's emotional stability to her direct supervisor, either. That left Kathleen, who listened to people's problems for a living—_and_ she was his sister, which meant that she was obligated to listen to him for free. Kathleen was sensible, rational—even if she'd have some information from Nancy, she would be capable of putting that aside. Granted, as his sister, she couldn't be completely objective, but she was as close to unbiased as he was likely to find.

"Then _what_?" Kathleen prompted.

"Her stepmother died," Derek said. "About a month after Ellis. Meredith had only known her a few months, but she'd gotten attached, and after she died, she just…shut down. Her father rejected her again and a sister she didn't know she had started working with her and she just…couldn't handle it."

"And that's why you're calling her so often?" Kathleen surmised.

Derek exhaled slowly. "Can I trust you not to tell the others, if I tell you something?"

"Of course," Kathleen assured him. As close knit as the Shepherd siblings were, Derek wasn't sure he could fully believe her, but for now, he'd go with it. Kathy would probably spill to the other girls eventually, but with any luck, it would be after he was back home with Meredith, and then it wouldn't matter as much.

"We broke up," he admitted. "About two months ago." He wouldn't confess that for all intents and purposes, they'd really broken up in June. Meredith had seen that as breaking up with him; he hadn't been willing to let her. He wasn't counting it as a real breakup, and therefore, his sisters didn't need to know that he'd spent five months in a sex-only relationship. Kathleen would _love_ the opportunity to analyze that, and he had no intention of allowing her to even start.

Kathleen was stunned silent for several long moments. She stood and crossed the room to the sink, opening the door to the lower-cabinet and tossing her soda can into the recycling bin. On the way back to the table, she stopped grabbed the ceramic cookie jar and brought it back to the table, holding it out to offer Derek some of his favorite gingerbread. Derek took one gratefully as Kathleen settled across from him again. "So…you're broken up," she said flatly. "And you've been talking to her all this week because…?"

"We got back together two weeks ago," Derek explained. "She's dealing with some of her issues and I'm trying to be more patient with her and deal with my issues, and we're working it out. We're getting it right this time; I know we are, I just…this is not the right time for me to be away from her. I made plans to come home while we were still broken up, and she wanted me to keep them, but that was before—"

"What do you mean?" Kathleen pressed. "What happened?"

Again, Derek was torn between the allure of cathartic indulgence in talking to Kathleen and his immediate instinct to protect Meredith and her privacy. "She's had a hard week," he said vaguely. "She found out the truth about some things in her childhood, and she took it pretty hard. She called Tuesday night in tears, and if you knew Meredith, you'd understand—she doesn't cry easily. Not in front of anyone, at least. She was so upset, and I couldn't do anything for her—"

Kathleen sighed thoughtfully. "How is she now?"

"She seems okay," Derek shrugged. "She says she's okay, but Meredith—she bottles things up. She shuts me out, pretends things aren't as bad as they are. We're communicating better now, but still—"

"You think she's putting on a brave face," Kathleen finished. "Derek, if you're so worried about her, why are you still here?"

"I don't know," he muttered, and truthfully, he didn't. "She told me not to cut my trip short. She didn't want to ruin my holiday plans. I told her it wouldn't, that I wanted to be with her if she needed me, but she keeps saying that she doesn't want me to come home early—"

"And you don't believe her," Kathleen said flatly.

He shook his head. "I want to, but…I know her. We've been through this before. I try and try and she doesn't let me help her and—I don't think that's what this is about, not this time. She came to me; she called and she told me exactly what had upset her, and she wouldn't have done that before. It would have been like pulling teeth to get it out of her before, but she told me. I don't think she's trying to push me away again—I think she's trying to convince herself that it's not affecting her as badly as it is—"

"Is it possible that it's _not_ affecting her that badly?" Kathleen suggested. "I'm not doubting that whatever it was upset her, but maybe she's telling the truth. Maybe talking to you helped her through the immediate crisis, and now she's handling it well enough on her own—"

"I can't take that chance," Derek insisted. "I've come so close to losing her, Kathy. Too many times—I can't lose her again."

"Derek—" Kathleen said gently. "I know that we don't know her, but I can't imagine that whatever happened is going to damage your relationship."

He started to protest, but paused when he realized that he hadn't actually been listening to anything Kathleen had said, and she _had_ made some good points. Maybe Meredith _was_ okay. Not great, but maybe she _was_ at least holding up like she assured him she was. And what he'd told Kathleen—was he not even paying attention to the words coming out of his own mouth? Meredith calling to tell him about her father and sisters was unprecedented—a major, positive step for her, for them. She _hadn't_ tried to hide it, so maybe it _was_ a little paranoid for him to assume that she'd hide the aftermath, too. And if she was opening up to him—suddenly he didn't seem to be in quite as much danger of losing her.

"I miss her, Kathleen," he murmured. "When we broke up—I thought this was it. I thought I'd screwed up so badly that I'd never get her back, and somehow I did. I have her back, and we're in…a really, really good place. We talked and made rules and we're going to make it work this time—if you knew what we'd been through, you'd understand how much better we are now—but I miss her."

"Wow," Kathleen breathed. "You really are crazy about this woman. Nancy said you were, but we didn't realize—"

Before Derek could respond, Julie and Maggie breezed into the kitchen. "What are we talking about?" Maggie asked.

"Derek was just telling me about Meredith," Kathleen said slyly.

"Really?" Julie raised an eyebrow and pulled out a chair for herself; Maggie quickly followed suit. "What did you do? He's been so stubborn about talking about her all week—"

"She used her sneaky psychiatrist ways," Maggie said knowingly. "So spill—what did you find out?"

"Not much," Kathleen smiled secretively at Derek. "But I do think our baby brother is in love."

"Of course he is," Maggie replied with a roll of her eyes. "He's had that phone glued to his ear all week like one of my girls." As if to illustrate Derek's dependence on the phone, she reached across the table and snatched it away.

"Hey!" Derek cried, grabbing a second to late to prevent Maggie's successful capture of the phone. "What are you doing?" he demanded as she began to press buttons and scroll through his data.

"Abby has pictures of her boyfriend on her phone," Maggie replied. "I'm sure you have one of Meredith somewhere on here."

"I don't, actually, so if you could just give that back--" Derek reached out to reclaim his phone, but Maggie turned away to keep it just out of range.

"Come on, Derek," Kathleen scoffed. To hear her now, siding so easily with Maggie and Julie against Derek, no one would ever believe that just minutes before, she'd been Derek's confidante, and was the sole member of his New York family to know the truth about what had happened with Meredith. He suspected that her shifting allegiance was more intentional than simply mercurial, and he was grateful for it. "You expect us to believe that you don't carry a picture of her? Seamus has a picture of Lydia as the background on his laptop. We just want to see what she looks like--"

"Fine," he gave in and took his wallet from his back pocket, opening it to remove the worn-edged photo of Meredith he'd tucked inside. It was the same one that usually sat on the desk in his office, but faced with a week without her, he'd had the presence of mind to think ahead and bring the photo with him. For a moment, he smiled softly at the image of her face and rubbed his thumb over the photo before handing it to Julie. "There."

Predictably, Julie reserved any intial comments, while Maggie was genuine, if a little superficial, in her first observation. "Oh, she's pretty!"

"She's _young," _Kathleen gaped, staring at the photo with wide eyes. "My god, Derek, she can't be much older than Seamus."

Derek bristled, quickly coming to Meredith's defense. "She's almost twenty-nine, and she doesn't act it." As soon as he'd said he, he knew that that wasn't completely true. Meredith _didn't_ act twenty-nine, unless one happened to be dating her, and then she had a tendency to act far younger. One of the hardest things of being with her was remembering that things he took for granted as being understood in relationships were completely foreign to her. The emotional intimacy of their relationship was uncharted territory for her; it was easy to forget that when he was focused on the wealth of experience she'd had in every other area of her life. "She's been through more than most people twice her age--especially in the last two years," he continued, and that seemed a little more truthful. "She's done a lot of growing up." And she had—she was a novice at serious relationships, but she _was_ evolving, and he'd learned the hard way not to underestimate the magnitude of how far she'd come in light of the hell the past few years had thrown at her.

"She's a baby, Derek--" Maggie agreed as she examined Meredith's picture closely for any sign that might accurately indicate her age.

"She's not," Derek insisted firmly. "It's nine years. It's not that big of a difference."

Julie cleared her throat and spoke up hesitantly. "I trust Derek's judgment," she decided, her words flowing freely in a manner that reminded Derek oddly of Meredith. "She is young, but we haven't met her, and we've always known that anything Nancy said had to be taken with a grain of salt." She paused to catch her breath and smiled reassuringly at her brother. "I think what matters is that Derek cares about her, and after what happened with Addison--I'm just happy that he's found someone that makes him happy."

Derek had rarely been so thankful for one his sisters to take his side. He wasn't surprised that it had been Julie, with all of her stereotypical middle-child affinity for mediation and peace-making, to offer an olive branch. "Thanks, Julie," he said softly.

She shrugged and smiled apologetically. "You are robbing the cradle a little, though, Derek," she conceded.

Derek didn't have the opportunity to defend himself again; Kathleen's oldest son wandered into the kitchen, his ears plugged with the earbuds of a new iPod. He opened the fridge and took out a cold drink, then leaned over his mother's chair to open the cookie jar. As he extracted three chocolate-chip Christmas trees, his eyes landed on the picture of Meredith that Kathleen was now studying.

"Who's the girl?" Seamus asked, his eyebrow quirked in interest.

Kathleen grinned mischievously at Derek. "That's your future aunt."

Seamus blushed slightly and ducked his head sheepishly. "Nice, Uncle Derek," he laughed in a feeble attempt to diffuse his own embarrassment. Derek could only imagine how mortified he would have been to be caught checking out one of _his_ uncle's girlfriends.

Kathleen shot Derek a pointed look, as if to say, "I told you so" before turning her mothering attention to her son. "Have you talked to Lydia about tonight yet?"

Immediately, the smile disappeared from Seamus's face, replace by a sullen scowl. "No," he muttered. A pop rang out as he flipped the tab on his soda, and before Kathleen could pry any further, Seamus took a long swallow and fled the kitchen.

Kathleen was left shaking her head in dismay and rubbing slow circles on her temples with the first two fingers of each hand. "He wants to skip dinner tonight to go see his girlfriend, and I told him no," she explained. "He's more than welcome to bring Lydia with him, but he's not bailing on family for a girl."

Derek had just reclaimed his photo of Meredith, and winced as Kathleen's words hit a little too close for comfort—maybe because he'd just been entertaining the thought of doing _exactly_ what Seamus was being reprimanded for. "Ouch. Watch those claws, Kathleen."

"Oh quit being a baby," she chided. "I didn't mean _you_. He's been with Lydia all week, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect him to be at his aunt's birthday dinner or see an uncle who's been on the other side of the country for two years before he disappears again."

Derek had to admit that he hadn't been able to spend much time with oldest—and arguably favorite—nephew in the week that he'd been home. The changes in his relationship with Seamus had been one of the things that hit him hardest when he'd first arrived a week earlier; the boy he'd been so close to just a few years before was now a near-stranger. It had taken thirty seconds from the moment he stepped foot in Kathy's house for Derek to feel _old_. To be fair, Kathleen was the oldest and had begun having her children early (she'd had three before Maggie had had her first), but that was little consolation for Derek, who still vividly remembered the day his mother had picked him up from an after-school band rehearsal and forced him to cram himself and his saxophone case into the backseat with Nancy and Julie. Maggie, Kate had explained as they left the school, was already at the hospital with Kathleen, who was due to give birth at any moment. "Any moment" had proved to be nearly sixteen hours later, but over two decades later, Derek could still feel the phantom weight of his brand-new baby nephew in his arms.

Seamus had been the first grandchild, and Derek had gloried in being an uncle. He'd watched that boy grow up—even taken him for one of his first driving lessons when he'd received his permit a few years earlier—but even so, Derek was completely unprepared to walk into Kathleen's living room and see Seamus on the couch, watching a ball game with a beer in one hand. He'd opened his mouth to say something, but a quick calculation confirmed the shocking reality – his baby nephew was twenty-two years old. He didn't need his sisters to remind him that Meredith was twenty-eight. Derek, it seemed, was ancient.

"How serious is he about this girl?" Derek asked.

"Pretty serious," Kathleen nodded after a moment's consideration. "They've been dating a year or so. Why?"

"I was just thinking...you could be a grandmother before I'm a father, Kathleen," Derek grinned teasingly.

Kathleen's jaw dropped and her blue eyes widened. "Take it back!" she cried incredulously.

Maggie and Julie snorted in an effort not to laugh. "We could have Great-Grandma Kate _and_ Grandma Kathy," Maggie suggested.

Kathleen's head snapped in Maggie's direction then. "Take it back!" she repeated, her forty-something years' worth of maturity quickly regressing to that of a petulant teenager. "I am not going to be...that word."

"You will be," Derek insisted. "My kids can play with your grandkids. It'll be great."

"Right," Kathleen scoffed. "You realize that if I'm a grandmother, it makes you a great-uncle."

Derek dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "No one will pay attention to that if I have a young wife and small children," he grinned, turning her teasing about Meredith's age back on her. "Not to mention I'm aging better than you."

"Well, not all of us have access to Mark and his Botox injections on our lunch breaks," Kathleen shot back.

"I've _never_ done that," Derek insisted. He saw a devilish smirk spread across Maggie's face from the corner of his eye, and couldn't resist a pre-emptive strike against her, too. "And I don't dye the gray from my hair, either."

Maggie, whose hair was suspiciously _more_ solid black that it had been on Christmas Eve, was stunned speechless. As she fumbled over her words, trying to form a stinging comeback, Derek's phone rang to life in Kathleen's hand.

"Oh, look, it's your fountain of youth," she announced, dangling the phone just out of Derek's reach, taunting him as Meredith's call rang once, twice, ever closer to voicemail. "Can I answer?"

"No," Derek frowned. He wasn't interested in playing his sisters' game anymore, not when that was three, four rings. He lunged suddenly and snatched the phone away from Kathy, answering just before voicemail could pick up. "Mere--"

"Hi," her voice was soft and hushed, laced with an undertone of urgency that immediately made his heart skip a beat. Something had happened.

"You're out earlier than I expected," he said, trying to sound upbeat so that his sisters wouldn't catch on that anything could be wrong. "How did it go?"

"It's not over," she sighed wearily. "I had to leave the OR to update the family, and I thought I'd call and let you know what was going on, too. I can't talk long--if Bailey finds out, I'll be on scut for a month."

"Oh," he said flatly. "Yeah, I understand. We can talk later, it's okay."

"Are you sure?" Meredith asked. "I know tonight is your sister's thing—won't you be busy?"

"I'll have my phone," he assured her. "Just call, and I'll step away from the party to talk. Promise."

"Okay, that's fine, I guess—" Meredith's voice broke off abruptly in a short hiss. "Damn it—I think Debbie just saw me. If she tells Bailey—"

"Go," he said immediately. "Good luck in surgery and with Bailey. I'll talk to you tonight."

They hung up without saying goodbye, and he reluctantly looked up to meet his sisters' intense gazes. Kathleen's insider knowledge made her more concerned, her stare more piercing, more demanding that he share whatever had just happened. He forced a smile that he hoped would quell their worrying. "She's fine," he nodded. "Going back into surgery."

They seemed to accept his explanation, though he noticed Kathleen kept a watchful eye on him as their conversation resumed and—thankfully—drifted away from Derek and Meredith. While his sisters lapsed easily into stories about their children and families, Derek's attention was divided between Meredith and the realization that his family _was_ changing. With every day that he wasn't part of their lives, he missed something, and as the children wove in and out of the kitchen over the next half-hour, it became clear that he was missing a lot. It wasn't just Seamus and his seemingly overnight transformation from the tiny baby Derek had adored from birth into an outgoing, confident, and sometimes moody young man. It was Bridget and the extra freckles that dotted her face, Erin's ever-expanding vocabulary, and the idea that several of his nieces had already been invited to their first prom for the coming spring. It was the gray that Maggie covered up, the silver his mother _hadn't_ hidden, and the painful truth that Kathleen really _would_ likely be a grandmother before Derek had successfully talked Meredith into children.

Time was passing for Derek, too. Every moment he spent with his family—as precious and wonderful as each second had been—was missed time with Meredith. He knew that they couldn't be together _all_ the time—even he would be burned out with that much togetherness—but after six weeks, he'd had his fill of time away from her. He didn't want to miss anything else. He didn't want to miss the next time she broke down in tears, didn't want to lose the opportunity to hold her and comfort her when her heart cracked open along the scar of an old wound—didn't want to miss a chance to do everything in his power to heal those wounds so that they could never hurt her again. They had so much to do, so many things to work out, and it seemed like the longer he was away, the longer the rest of their life together was delayed. Patience was not among Derek's stronger virtues, and he was tired of waiting. There wasn't _time_ to waste. His own birthday was weeks away; he would be a year younger than his father had been when he died. He would surpass his father's lifespan, but he couldn't help but feel that his father had left the more enduring legacy. Aside from his career, Derek had nothing to show for his life, nothing except Meredith and the possibilities for their future—but none of his hopes and dreams could actualize while he was still wasting time in New York, wasting time without her.

When Nancy trudged downstairs about half an hour later, the hand of a twin held in each of her own, Derek took her arrival as his opportunity to flee. He assured him that he'd be back as soon as he'd showered and gotten ready for Julie's dinner, but he remained locked in his room until Kate called him to leave for the restaurant. He grabbed his wallet and he finished his phone call; confirming his airline reservations for his return flight may not make the remainder of his visit any easier to endure, but it at least made him feel one more solid, tangible step closer to Meredith and home. Soon, he told himself. It wouldn't be much longer now. He could see her, touch her, taste her, sense her again—soon.

Dinner helped to take his mind off of missing Meredith, at least after he'd had a few rounds of scotch at the bar with his brothers-in-law. Not enough to be drunk, but enough to feel less self-hatred for not being with Meredith, to enjoy his time with his family with relatively little guilt. Enough to laugh and joke with his sister's husbands, to tease his sisters and play with his nieces and nephews. Enough to remember the life that he'd led not so long ago, when he and Addison had met here for dinner with their friends, when he and Mark and Weiss had had a standing weekly "reservation" at a bar down the street, when gatherings of his entire family weren't uncommon and something that only happened on holidays and special occasions. Enough to know what he'd had, what he'd lost, and know beyond any _hint_ of painful doubt that he didn't want it back. Enough to know that his life in New York had been a crucial part of forming who Derek Shepherd was, to know that even when he vanished for two years, his family would always welcome him back as though he'd only been gone two minutes—but more than anything, to know that this trip had been necessary for him to finally move on with Meredith. New York was his past; Meredith was his future. His family would always serve to bridge the two halves of his life together, but he wasn't the seasoned Manhattanite Derek anymore. Seattle was home now, and he liked it there. It had ferryboats. And Meredith. Mostly Meredith.

The promise of his future with Meredith had become an all-consuming force, fueled by the time away from her and the constant reminder that his family--while large and seemingly omnipresent--wasn't complete without her in the picture. He'd realized that in the most literal way that morning, when for the first time in over a decade, he was alone in the family portrait. It wasn't the being alone that bothered him, so much as it was that the picture would be a lie; it wasn't their whole family. Even if Meredith wasn't his wife (yet), she wasn't going anywhere. His heart raced at the thought of the next Christmas--a whole year away, but worth it, because he'd spend it with _her_. The scene varied slightly; he didn't feel comfortable making the call on whether they'd be alone in Seattle or in New York with his family. He thought he wanted time with her, the chance to make their own holiday traditions, to experience something that could be uniquely _theirs_--but at the same time, he couldn't deny how badly he wanted to see Meredith fully integrated with his family. The kids would overwhelm her a little, he suspected, but she'd fall in love with his nieces, especially if Jaime--who had nominated herself as Meredith's ambassador to the rest of the family--had anything to say about it. His mother would adore her, but considering how Meredith had eventually come around to Susan, Derek hoped that Meredith wouldn't feel like Kate was _smothering_ her. The sisters would be the hardest part, but he was fairly confident that aside from Nancy, the hardest battle was already won with Kathleen. If the oldest came around, the others almost always followed suit. He was already envisioning a lifetime of Christmas with Meredith, of wrapping presents and decorating trees with their children and waking up in the middle of the night to put out gifts for their family, continuing the history his mother and father had begun forty years earlier. He might have to take over the gingerbread, though; he didn't trust Meredith not to burn down the house. But then again--he did have every Christmas for the rest of their lives to teach her, every Christmas from now on to make it up to her that she'd never really had one, and most importantly, that he had missed their first.

Everything reminded him of her. Seamus had decided to bring his girlfriend after all, and Derek recognized the look of hopeless adoration on his nephew's face as one that graced his own frequently when Meredith was around. Jaime had made it her mission to glean every piece of trivia about Meredith from Derek, and spent a good part of the evening trying to convince Derek to take her home with him to visit Meredith. His older nieces had joined the questioning for a little while, until he'd had to disappoint them with the knowledge that Meredith would be much less likely to bestow designer hand-me-downs upon Derek's teenage nieces than Addison had. There was a blonde at the bar that wore a dress uncannily like the one he hadn't been able to get off of Meredith fast enough the night they met. And then there was the cheesecake they had for dessert--not guilt-inducing because he ate all of his generously-portioned serving, but because he knew how much Meredith would have loved it.

Despite the fact that she was constantly on his mind, the noise in the restaurant (equal parts his family and the other three-fourths of the patrons) drowned out the ring of his phone, and he was oblivious that he'd missed her call for several hours. Once Julie's party wound down, his siblings began the arduous process of herding their families into the proper flocks, complicated by the cries and pleas of cousins not yet ready to leave one another. After brief negotiations and fielding a few offers of sleep-overs, every child was entrusted to the care of an adult, if not necessarily with his or her parent--somehow, Julie had ended up with no children at all for the night, while Maggie had collected not only Erin, but all four of her girls and one of Kathleen's. Kate insisted that they wait until everyone else left, to ensure that none of the children were left, before she allowed Derek to flag a taxi to take them home.

He dozed lightly in the cab, and by the time he entered the dark foyer of his mother's home, he was fully sated, convinced that he wouldn't need to eat for a week, and completely exhausted. Kate slipped into the kitchen to prepare a cup of tea--to calm her down from the night's excitement, she said. Derek made his way to his bedroom and navigated in the darkness to the bathroom. Growing up, his sisters had bemoaned the supreme injustice that Derek not only had his own room, while the girls doubled up, but that the _boy_ had been given the only bedroom apart from their parents' that had a private bath. In high school, when Julie and Nancy had been forced to wake at ungodly hours in order to get ready for school, Derek had had the luxury of sleeping in and showering at his leisure. Even twenty years later, Derek still enjoyed the perks of being the only son. With his sisters back in their homes, there was no danger of running out of hot water, no one to bang on the door demanding that he hurry up, no one sneaking in when he wasn't there to leave makeup powders dusting the counter. There was nothing to stop him from reveling in a long, steaming, relaxing shower that soothed him into a sort of dazed trance, where everything seemed a little fuzzier, a little warmer, and sleep didn't appear to be far out of reach. The chill of his bedroom was a stark contrast to the sauna his bathroom became immediately after his shower, and he hurried to pull on a t-shirt and his plaid pajama bottoms (the same ones, he remembered fondly, that Meredith had worn when she'd slept over a few weeks before) before the warmth could leave his body in a mass exodus, leaving only gooseflesh in its wake.

The alarm clock by his bed showed that it was nearly one in the morning; he hadn't realized it was so late, but then again, with the size of his family, there was no such thing as getting in and out of a restaurant. He was prepared to go to bed, but paused halfway through turning down the covers when he heard movement downstairs. Surely Kate couldn't still be awake? He crept downstairs, taking great care to remember which ones would creak under his weight, and found Kate in the living room, staring a framed picture on the mantle. The room was dim, lit only by a lamp, but Derek didn't need to be able to see to recognize the photo; it was their Christmas photo from the last year his father had been alive, one of the last of all seven Shepherds together.

He cleared his throat to alert his mother to her presence, worried that he would frighten her if she turned suddenly and saw him standing in the darkness behind her. "Are you going to bed soon, Mom?"

"In a minute," she nodded. At first, she didn't take her eyes from the image of her family, but with a deep sigh, she shifted her gaze to Derek and smiled warmly. "I'm so glad you came home, darling. I wish you weren't going back so soon, but I understand. You have a life there now—and a beautiful woman waiting for you."

He couldn't help but smile at the thought of Meredith, of being reunited with her soon. So, so soon. "I'll come home again soon, Mom," he promised. "I don't know when, but I promise—I won't stay away so long again. And I'll call more, and—I'll see about bringing Meredith to meet you next time, maybe."

"That would be nice," Kate replied. "I've been so happy this week, Derek—having you here with your sisters. It's been…so nice to have my family together again."

"I know," Derek agreed. "Can I…do you want to go to lunch tomorrow? Just me and you?"

"Sounds wonderful, Derek," Kate said. "I'm going to go to bed. Don't stay up too late, and I'll see you in the morning. Pancakes for breakfast?"

Derek grinned. "Sounds perfect. 'Night, Mom."

Kate retreated to her bedroom upstairs, and Derek took her spot by the fireplace, studying the image of his father's face for a few minutes before his eyes drifted to the bookshelf. The top shelf held his mother's books, the second and third were filled with family pictures, and the bottom shelf contained the photo albums that wouldn't fit in his mother's room. On a whim, he grabbed and armful and carried them back to his room, where he stacked them at the foot of the bed, grabbed the first one, and began. He made his selections carefully, weighing the options, choosing only those that held a story or a specific memory, and making mental notes so that he wouldn't forget the meaning. He stopped only when his eyes began burning in protest, and yawned sleepily. A quick glance at the clock revealed that he'd been poring over old pictures for an hour; he should get some sleep, especially with the full day planned for tomorrow. At least he'd used some of his free time that afternoon to prepare.

Derek rose from the bed with great effort and laid the photo albums on the floor by his suitcase, which now held only neatly folded clothes—no more chaos and disorder. He fished his phone from the pocket of the pants he'd worn that evening, intending to set the alarm to wake him up (he didn't trust the decades-old clock his mother kept in his room.) He swore under his breath when he realized that he'd missed a call from Meredith over four hours earlier, and quickly checked his voicemail, hoping fervently that she hadn't needed him like she had the other night.

"Hey, it's me," her message began. So far so good—she didn't sound like she'd been crying. "It's about ten o'clock your time…seven here. I'm leaving the hospital in about an hour and going home. I know you're probably still at Julie's dinner, but call me back if you get this and it's not too late. I'm…really tired, so I'm probably going to bed around ten, but yeah…just call, if you can…"

He didn't hear the rest of her message; by the end of it, her voice was weary, strained, and that was all he needed to hear to know that he _had_ to make sure she was okay. It was already eleven in Seattle. She might already be asleep, but maybe not, and the chance to talk to her was definitely worth a try. He toyed with the edge of the blanket, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, as the phone rang and with each trill that went unanswered, his hope faded a little more. Just before he gave up, the fifth ring broke off halfway through. At first, he heard only shuffling and static, but after a moment, her muffled voice reached his ears.

"Derek?" she muttered. She didn't sound particularly happy to hear from him, but surely that was the fatigue after her day, and not actual irritation.

If she was irritated, though, it might not be unfounded. Apparently a week off work negated his ability to execute higher brain functions on little sleep, and he was definitely in the running for world's stupidest question. "Were you asleep?"

"Mm," her murmur was interrupted by a sleepy yawn. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry," her said. "I just saw the missed call--I didn't hear my phone—"

"It's okay," she replied. He recognized the sounds of her tossing and turning, and the soft thump of her headboard as it hit the wall. He was fairly confident that her roommates hadn't missed _that_ sound since he and Meredith had broken up.

"Are you sure?" he pressed. "You sounded--

"Tired," Meredith interrupted him almost immediately, predicting the end of his sentence. "I was really, really tired. That's why I left you a message telling you I was going to bed," she added pointedly.

He laughed sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I hoped I might catch you before. I'll let you go back to sleep."

"No--it's okay," she assured him quickly. "I'm awake now."

She wasn't, not really, but he'd take it. "We haven't talked today," he said, as though she needed a reminder that their five-second conversation that afternoon was the sum total of their contact in the past twenty-four hours. He sighed softly, "It's good to hear your voice."

He could almost hear her pleased smile. "Mm. How was Julie's birthday? And picture taking?

Derek groaned at the memories of that morning. It had been an excruciatingly long day, but worth it, if her voice was how he'd end the day. "Pictures were...survived," he admitted. "Birthday was good. I thought about you most of the time.

She giggled lightly, and his heart swelled. God, he loved that sound. "Mm. Me?"

"Mm. You," he repeated, a grin splitting his face. "We went to this place--rented out the whole top room to fit everyone--and they have amazing cheesecake. You'd love it, Mere."

"Mm, so you thought of me while you were eating cheesecake?" Meredith replied with mock indignation. "That's cruel. Do you know what _I_ had for dinner?"

He could wager a guess that it had involved either unpalatable food combinations, dishes that were never meant to be dinner, or both, but when it came to her dietary choices, Meredith never ceased to surprise him. "I'm scared to ask."

"Animal crackers from the snack machine," she confessed. "And they were stale. I was going to make grilled cheese when I got home, but I was too tired, and Izzie had baked cupcakes, so I ate two of those."

Derek shook his head in disbelief. "God, Meredith, and you're still able to sleep after all that sugar? We've got to work on your eating habits." He hesitated and pressed his lips together for a moment, then sighed thoughtfully. "Do you want to go to dinner Monday night when my flight gets in?

"Won't you be tired?" Meredith replied.

"Mm. Maybe," Derek allowed with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "But I want another date with you."

She considered that for a moment, then suggested. "We could eat at my place. Take out or something. I might even let you have Chinese."

"Mm," he hummed happily. "You must really miss me."

"I do," she said softly. He knew what it took for her to admit her feelings; six months before, she would have never been so direct, and now, there was barely a second's pause. "Seriously, I do." If it were possible, he thought he might be falling even more in love with her.

"I know," he replied. "Me too. Dinner at your place sounds great."

"Good," Meredith's voice rose in pitch as a yawn swallowed her words. "So it's a date."

"It is a date," Derek agreed. "I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too," she murmured. "What time is your flight coming in Monday?"

"I'm not sure," he told her. "Afternoon sometime. I'll call tomorrow and let you know. We'll plan our date then. I'm going to let you go so you can get some sleep."

She didn't protest, which only served to confirm how exhausted she really was. After they exchanged murmured goodnights, he set the alarm on his phone, flipped off the bedside lamp, and laid back against his pillow. It wouldn't be long now. His trip was winding to an end, and while he couldn't deny the good that seeing his family had done, he was beyond ready for home, beyond ready to see Meredith again. He couldn't get back to Seattle fast enough, but for now, he could sleep. Morning would bring him one step closer to her.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Hey look....I'm still alive and writing. Sorry for the delay, thanks for your patience, and as always, I will be grateful for any feedback you feel inclined to offer.  
**

Meredith woke up on the last day of December with goosebumps covering every inch of skin from head to toe. After glancing at the clock—two A.M.--she crawled shivering from her bed and padded barefoot across the floor to her closet. When she grabbed two of the extra blankets from the top shelf, she was assaulted by an avalanche of sheets, pillowcases, and off-season clothes; she didn't care enough to pick them up, and left them piled on the floor as she stumbled back to bed. Wrapped up in a cocoon of blankets, she eventually fell asleep again, but she didn't fully shake the chill until her alarm went off a few hours later, sending her trudging to the bathroom and the refuge offered by the hot spray of the shower. She was reluctant to leave the warm water, and only did so when Izzie's near-howling complaints outside the bathroom door became too much to handle.

She drove to the hospital that morning, full of high hopes and expectations despite the less than stellar start to her day. One more day—one more night—and then Derek would be back. Around six o'clock tomorrow night, she'd be picking him up from the airport, and she didn't have any intention of letting him go further than his trailer for quite a while. She should have known as soon as all the pieces began to fall into place that it was all a recipe for disaster. Christmas. Meeting her sisters. A week off therapy. Derek across the country. Nothing good could have come of it.

Still, she'd survived as well as could be expected. Considering that the bottle of tequila Alex had given her for Christmas was still (mostly) full, she might even go so far as to say that she'd _exceeded_ expectations. She attributed that success to Derek's phone calls, which had been so frequent that they might have been annoying, had they not been so _perfectly_ what she needed. More than once, she'd wished that she _had_ let him come home like he wanted to, and more than once, especially in the first few days after the brunch, she'd snuck into his office on her lunch break and used his desktop computer to pull up flight schedules. A few times, she almost hadn't been able to stop herself from picking up the phone and calling him with the details for the next plane back to Seattle.

For the past few days, Lexie had had the night shifts that Meredith had suffered through during her own intern year; Meredith was dually thankful for her own resident status—less late shifts, and a guilt-free excuse for _not_ seeing Lexie. They'd only run into each other once, but Cristina had rounded the corner, spotted Meredith's discomfort and barked at "Three" to go see what she could do in the clinic. Meredith had made a mental note to talk to Cristina about the "Three" thing—Lexie _was_ her little sister after all, and she _did_ have a name—but at the moment, she'd simply been grateful to _not_ have to talk to Lexie. Molly had tried to call her once, two days after the brunch, to let her know that she and Laura were going back to Portland the next day, in case she wanted to "get together" before then. Meredith had first been shocked to hear Molly's voice on the answering machine, knowing that she hadn't even given Lexie her home number, until she considered that there couldn't be that many Meredith Greys in the phone book. She hadn't called Molly back. She was a bad sister, maybe, a bad aunt, but she couldn't deal with them again, not yet. She needed Derek or therapy—or maybe both—before she was ready to face her sisters again.

What she needed wasn't always what she got, however, and to her dismay, she arrived at the hospital to learn that she'd been assigned to Mark's service, along with another second-year resident and two interns—including Lexie. To his credit, Mark had been uncharacteristically sensitive to Meredith since the night she'd almost fallen apart in the scrub room, even if he masked his concern with his gruff, begrudging front. He'd given Lexie a thick stack of charts to review, and as Lexie had retreated to find a quiet place for her paperwork, Mark had muttered to Meredith that once the charts were done, she was on her own to deal with her sister. It may not have been much, but Meredith wasn't complaining. One less hour to worry about facing Lexie was one less hour, no matter how she came by it.

Since Meredith had scrubbed in on Mark's first surgery, she managed more than just an hour without Lexie. By the time Meredith had settled the patient in post-op recovery, Lexie was prepping Mark's next surgery. Meredith practically floated to the cafeteria, looking forward to the promise of a decent lunch hour, uninterrupted by surgery or sisters. After she'd paid for her food, she found Izzie and Cristina at their normal table. Cristina, who had her nose buried in a thick article she'd photocopied from some journal, breathed a sigh of relief that Meredith's arrival meant Izzie would have someone else to talk to; Izzie seemed hopeful that Meredith might actually respond to her attempts at conversation.

"Hey, Mere," Izzie said, covering her mouth with one hand as she swallowed a bite of her sandwich. "Do you wanna go to Joe's with us after work?"

Meredith peeled the foil top off of her yogurt and tossed it onto her tray. Cristina scowled as a drop of pink came a little too close to her article. "Maybe," Meredith replied noncommittally, ignoring Cristina's annoyed glare. "I'm not sure."

Next to her, Cristina rolled her eyes. "McDreamy comes back tomorrow," she explained to Izzie. "She has to sleep tonight so she'll be ready for marathon reunion sex."

"Oh god," Izzie groaned in dismay. "Meredith, can you _please_ go to his place? I have a really important surgery Friday morning, and if you keep me up all night—"

"No reunion sex," Meredith shook her head. Cristina snorted in disbelief, which earned her a sharp glare from Meredith. "I'm serious!" she insisted, looking back and forth at the skepticism painted on her friends' faces. "We're taking it slow. No sex."

"Who's not having sex?" Alex asked, slipping into the chair next to Izzie and seamlessly inserting himself into the conversation.

"Meredith," Izzie replied. "McDreamy comes back tomorrow, but she wants us to believe that they're not having reunion sex. Can we vote her out of the house for the night so that we don't have to listen?"

"It's _my_ house," Meredith reminded them indignantly. "And there won't be anything to listen to. We're not having sex."

"Yeah, right," Alex laughed. "Just turn up the TV in your room and drown them out," he suggested to Izzie. "It's what I do."

"Seriously?" Meredith cried. "There will be no sex. None. And who are you two to judge? Izzie, we had to hear you and _George_." Alex guffawed as Izzie's jaw dropped, but quickly lost his smug grin when Meredith turned to him. "And _you_—you brought home _Lexie_, and seeing my half-sister half naked? That was something I could have gone my whole life without experiencing, so thanks for that."

"Did I hear my name?" George had walked up the table in the middle of Meredith's rant, but the clueless expression on his face indicated that he'd missed the gist of it. "What are we talking about?" he asked innocently.

"Nothing," Meredith groaned.

"No, seriously—"George persisted; he seemed convinced that he'd been the brunt of a joke before his arrival. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing," Meredith said again as her eyes fell on Cristina's article. "Cristina was just saying that as soon as you got here, she'd put away her article."

"Not a chance," Cristina didn't tear her eyes away from the tiny printed text. "I'm scrubbing in with Hahn in an hour. She wrote an article on this procedure for Journal of Cardiothoracic Surgery last year, and I'm not giving her any excuse to kick me out of her OR."

"So what, you're going to memorize it?" Alex scoffed.

"Lexie could help you with that," George suggested. Cristina shot him a murderous look. "No, seriously," he insisted. "She has a photographic memory."

"Seriously?" Cristina and Meredith said at once. "Well, I guess that explains how she got through Harvard Med," Cristina added.

"How does that _work_?" Izzie wondered out loud.

While the others debated the merits and functions of a photographic memory, Meredith snapped the plastic lid over the other half of her sandwich and piled her trash on her tray. Between Derek and Lexie, she wasn't enjoying the focus of their lunchtime conversation. "I have a thing I forgot about," she announced, smiling weakly as she pushed back her chair and stood up. "Gotta go."

She threw away her tray on the way out of the atrium, keeping only her sandwich and water, and quickly made her way to the elevators. Derek's office had become her own private retreat over the past week; she was _almost_ going to resent him for coming back and taking it from her. It had been perfect, having a quiet room all to herself for charting and napping and escaping from omnipresent half-siblings. Not to mention the research benefits—when everyone else crowded into one of the computer nooks to look up a procedure or seek some cutting-edge, ground-breaking technique to suggest during patient presentation, she'd had the advantage of secrecy, of exploring her ideas without Cristina or Alex circling like opportunistic vultures above her.

It hadn't taken her long to work out his password—she'd tried Maloney first, but quickly learned that she'd given him more credit for originality than he deserved. After a few failed combinations of his birthday and key words ("ferry boats", "Scotch", and "trout" had all been rejected), she'd struck gold with her own name, followed by his birthday. If she were a good girlfriend, she'd tell him to change his password to something a little less predictable, but it was sweet, and a little flattering, that every time Derek logged onto his computer, he had to think of her.

Today, she really only wanted to avoid her friends, so she finished her lunch while she wandered through a few of the online neurosurgical journals Derek had bookmarked. Meredith had easily whittled away her lunch hours this week poring over the case studies, making mental notes of questions and thoughts they raised, and—when time permitted—seeking out the answers. She was deeply engrossed in an article about malignant gliomas in pediatric patients when the soft buzz of her cell phone on the desk penetrated the still of Derek's office.

She jumped in surprise, nearly sending the mouse and keyboard clattering the floor as she scrambled to steady them. Blood rushed to her face, coloring it red with embarrassment, as though Derek had actually walked into the office and caught her leaving crumbs on his desk and spying on his browsing history, rather than merely _called_ her when she _happened_ to be on his computer. She quickly regained her composure, her discomfort replaced by her eagerness at the prospect of hearing Derek's voice. "Hey!"

"Hey!" Derek's voice responded, tinged with an eagerness to match her own and something that sounded like pleasant surprise. "You sound happy."

"I am happy," Meredith replied; a smile spread slowly across her face as supporting evidence, even though he couldn't see it. She clicked the mouse to minimize the browser window and drew her feet into his chair. "You're coming home tomorrow."

He sighed heavily. "Yeah…"

Meredith heart plummeted to her stomach at the hesitation in his voice. "What?" she said weakly. "What was that?" She was completely sure that she didn't want to hear his answer; she knew instinctively that she wasn't going to like it.

If she _had_ had any doubts, they were gone as soon as he spoke again, turning her name into a plea for forgiveness. "Meredith—"

The chair spun in a slow circle as she leaned back; she felt sick to her stomach, but the twirling motion had nothing to do with it. "Don't…" she started. "Derek, don't tell me you're staying—"

"No, no, I'm coming home, I promise," he replied quickly. "It's just…the flight I was supposed to take—it looks like it might be cancelled. There's a storm rolling in tomorrow afternoon and they're talking about grounding all the planes until it blows over."

"Seriously?" Meredith groaned. She hadn't been back in Seattle so long that she'd forgotten the often-brutal nature of New England winters that had plagued her college and med school years. She knew exactly how bad this could be, how much of a dent it could put in their plans to be back together soon. "How long is that going to take?"

"I wish I knew," Derek sighed. "I'm sorry, Meredith. I'm going to do everything I can, but…I don't know to fix this."

Meredith grabbed a fistful of her hair as her eyes focused on the clock on the opposite wall. "It's okay," she decided with a sigh of frustration--not at Derek, but at the knowledge that there was _nothing_ she or Derek could do to rectify the situation. It was out of their hands, and unfortunately, _Derek_ was out of her hands, too. He was stuck in New York, waiting with no guarantee that he'd be able to get out as planned tomorrow, and never in the week since she'd seen him had three thousand miles seemed so far. "You'll be here when you can. I'll be okay. What's another day, right?" she added with forced bravery.

His breath crackled in her ear as he exhaled slowly. "I'll make it up to you when I get back."

"It's fine." If she said that often enough, she might begin to believe it. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't her fault. It was something they couldn't control. Despite the god complexes awarded alongside their white coats, they had no power over the weather. It was a hard pill to swallow; she didn't like feeling helpless, and Derek had an uncanny knack for making her feel like everything in her life was slipping out of control—even when he didn't mean to.

"Look on the bright side," Derek offered. "You'll get to sleep in tomorrow morning. You won't have to get up early to clean the house before I get there."

Meredith laughed in spite of her disappointment—which, she suspected, was his intent. "You say that like you actually expected me to clean."

"Mm, I guess I am talking to the wrong woman for that," Derek agreed thoughtfully. "But we'll still have our date when I get back?"

"Of course," she replied. At this point, the idea of having Derek to herself for several hours--whenever he was finally back in Seattle--was the only thing keeping her sane. After the last week, and especially today and the sudden threat of Derek's delay, she couldn't handle another let-down.

"Good," Derek said. His voice seemed to convey his beaming grin through the phone lines, and she could see his smile materialize in her mind's eye. "I'm looking forward to our date. And kissing."

"Kissing?" Meredith repeated with a light giggle. "You think there's going to be kissing?" There _would_ be kissing—if he didn't, she would (but she didn't expect that he'd object)—but she didn't have to let him think he was getting kisses so easily.

"Oh yes," Derek replied, his voice thick with the confidence-bordering-arrogance that so often came paired with a smug grin curled on his lips. "You promised me kissing when I left."

She'd relived the last time she'd seen him daily since he'd been gone. The ghost of his arms around her, his lips on her cheek, had sustained her the past few days, and now more than ever, she wondered why she hadn't just let him kiss her goodbye at the airport. Anticipation was good, she'd thought, but in this moment, she'd prefer instant gratification. "Oh right, I did," Meredith relented, as though she _hadn't_ been thinking about their next kiss constantly. "Okay then. Kissing when you get back."

Derek was quiet for several moments, and in the quiet of his office, Meredith could hear the tick of the clock with each second that passed. Five minutes before, the time that elapsed had been encouraging, one less second until Derek's return; now, it just felt like that much longer that Meredith was alone. "I miss you," Derek said finally. "Are you going to be okay tonight?"

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "I um…I might go to Joe's. Everyone's going over there after work. I was going to go home, but…I guess a drink or two won't hurt tonight."

There was no way she could mistake the concern in his voice, and she didn't know how to make him believe that she _wasn't_ planning to drown her disappointment in tequila. She wasn't that Meredith anymore, didn't _want_ to be that Meredith anymore—but she hadn't forgotten how quickly she would have amassed a pyramid of shot glasses just a few months earlier after a week like this. "Are you going to be home later?" he asked, his words carefully crafted so as _not_ to suggest that he thought she might spend the night in the bar. "I can call later, let you know if I've heard anything different from the airlines—"

"I'll be home," Meredith nodded. "Maybe an hour or two. Just a couple drinks, I promise."

"That's not even enough to get _you_ tipsy, Mere," Derek chuckled. "Have a good time. I'll call you later—around nine, maybe?"

She would get off work at six, as long as the rest of the day went without complication. That would give her time at Joe's with her friends, time to get home. "Yeah," she agreed. "Nine is good." Her forehead wrinkled in thought as she mentally calculated the time difference. Nine her time would be midnight for him. "Wait—won't you—"

He interrupted before she could finish her thought. "Great; I'll talk to you tonight, then. I've got to run—bye, Mere." With that, he was gone, and Meredith was left staring at the blank screen of her phone.

She'd survived more than a week, but somehow, Meredith couldn't shake the feeling that this last twenty-four hours would be the worst of all.

* * *

The afternoon dragged, and by the time Meredith trudged into Joe's with her friends, she was certain that she'd earned the right to drink tonight. Balanced on her usual barstool, Meredith ran her fingers along the rim of the now-empty shot glass. As Derek had observed, a single shot of tequila had virtually no effect on her, but she had to admit that the company of her friends had helped to lift the sullen mood that had hovered over her since Derek's phone call. She'd never been accused of spending too much time with Derek, to the neglect of her friends--it was one of Derek's biggest complaints that she did the exact opposite, and if she were honest with herself, she knew he was right. But she was right, too--sort of. Through the roller coaster that had been their relationship thus far, her friends had been a constant. They'd been there when he hadn't, and the first time she'd told him that, he'd seemed to get it. He'd seemed to understand that when she_ couldn't _trust him, she _needed_ the security of her friends. But now--now she was _maybe_ starting to trust him again, and Derek? Derek needed _her_. He needed her close, to know that she was okay, they were okay--that he wasn't going to be pulling her off the ocean floor again. Derek needed to know that she was as deeply in this as he was, and that meant time with him. Just him.

Derek had been married. He knew how to do this, to be part of a couple and yet still be himself. She was still figuring that part out--sometimes, she felt like she was still trying to figure out how to be _Meredith_, let alone half of Meredith-and-Derek. The prospect of portioning time for herself, for her friends, and for Derek--and not short-change any of them--was daunting. She would always be grateful for her friends' support, but she admitted that this last time, in the weeks leading up to Cristina's not-wedding, she'd overcompensated by leaning on them to the detriment of her relationship with Derek. Sitting in the bar now, surrounded by all of her friends for what felt like the first time in weeks, she wondered if she might have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction, if between the therapy and Derek, she'd neglected her friends. She knew she had work to do, needed to find the right balance, but she'd thought she was doing a good job of at least keeping her head above water--but yet, she'd obviously missed _something_.

If Lexie hadn't already told Meredith about her crush on George, Meredith would have figured it out tonight. There was no way she could miss the way Lexie looked at George. Lexie seemed to notice the anti-sibling barrier Meredith had put up around herself tonight, and other than a hesitant smile and timid wave, Lexie hadn't attempted to make contact with her. Instead, she'd ordered some fruity mixed drink from the bar--the kind of thing Meredith might have teased her for, if she felt like a real sister and if she didn't know how Thatcher and hard liquor had made Lexie's life hell the last few months--and slid into a corner booth with a few other interns Meredith recognized, but couldn't necessarily name. From there, Lexie had been shooting hopeful, fervent, doe-eyed glances in George's direction every two or three minutes; George was painfully oblivious, his back turned to Lexie, but Meredith couldn't miss it. She had enough personal history of surreptitious looks of longing at a man she couldn't--or didn't--have; recognizing the look of wanting in Lexie's dark eyes was as easy as looking into a mirror. It was almost tragically karmic; after months of pining after Meredith, George had finally succeeded in becoming the object of a Grey's affection.

Less predictable was the way Alex had been staring at Izzie for the past half-hour. Meredith had always privately suspected that there was still some spark between her roommates, but if anything had begun again, it had happened right under her nose. Izzie didn't seem to notice either, although Meredith was pretty confident that Izzie had moved past that ill-fated whatever with George. Across the room, Callie and Hahn were laughing over their beers, most likely at Mark, whose trademark confident smirk had fallen from his face as he slunk away, like a wounded puppy with his tail between his legs. Meredith tried not to laugh; Mark's rejection shouldn't be funny, but at the same time, she couldn't wait to tell Derek.

She felt a small smile curl the corners of her mouth, and Cristina immediately scowled. "Quit it."

"What?" Meredith cried defensively.

"You're thinking about McDreamy," Cristina accused. "You get that dopey look on your face. You're not supposed to be thinking about him. This is a McDreamy-free zone. Forget McDreamy--we should find you someone else--what about that guy?"

If Meredith had believed for a second that Cristina was serious (about the someone else part, anyway), she would have been offended as Cristina pointed out a guy on the other end of the bar. He was exactly the kind of guy she would have let buy her a drink a year ago, exactly the kind of guy she would have taken home--or at least to his car in the parking lot. If she'd been asked a year ago how she planned to ring in 2007, she'd never have imagined that instead of flirting with cute boys in the bar, she'd be completely indifferent to their presence, focused instead on how many more hours remained until she'd see Derek again. "Maybe you should go for him," Meredith suggested, knowing that Cristina--while no saint--wasn't really the type to pick up a random stranger for the night.

Cristina snorted indignantly and polished off the last of her beer. As if on cue, Joe appeared to offer another, and Meredith let him pour another shot for her, too. She stared at it for a few seconds before she gulped it back, letting the tequila blaze down her throat without so much as flinching.

"Another?" Joe shook the bottle at her.

She shook her head. "No, but thanks."

Joe raised an eyebrow skeptically. "You're stopping at two? Are you feeling okay?"

Before Meredith could answer, Cristina did it for her. "She's moping over McDreamy."

"Ah," Joe nodded in understanding, as though no further explanation was necessary. "Are you _sure_ you don't need another shot?"

"I'm fine," Meredith smiled weakly. "Thanks, Joe."

Cristina rolled her eyes, leaving no doubt how pathetic she thought Meredith was being, but in typical Cristina fashion, proceeded to gloss over the Derek issue and switch topics to something she'd find more interesting. Meredith didn't mind too much; she was genuinely happy that Cristina had finally gotten her shot in surgery with Hahn (and thrilled that, according to Cristina's account, she hadn't screwed it up—not that Cristina made mistakes often), and the detailed report of the procedure provided a welcome distraction from the constant thoughts of what the weather conditions in New York might look like.

Meredith was content to let Cristina dominate the conversation; she briefly considered sharing some of the research she'd been doing on Derek's computer, but her competitive nature held her back. Cristina had never shown a strong interest in neuro, but she'd do anything that would put her ahead of the other residents in their year. Meredith could probably tell Derek about her ideas, but she wasn't sure she could trust Cristina not to be a shark. Instead, Cristina talked about work and surgeries and more work, never letting the conversation come close to Derek or Burke or anything that suggested that either of them had a personal life outside of the hospital. After Cristina finished her second beer, they migrated to a booth, where Izzie, Alex, and George joined them.

Any buzz Meredith might have gotten from her drinks dissipated quickly, and while she was still enjoying her evening with her friends, they were no longer providing the same level of distraction. She _wanted_ to be better company, to _not_ be the mopey girl who couldn't stop missing her boyfriend, but she couldn't help it. She wanted Derek. All week, she'd wanted Derek, looked forward to him coming home tomorrow, and now…she didn't know. While George was bemoaning the skills lab he'd completed with his intern group that day, Meredith slipped her cell phone from her pocket and keyed out a text to Derek, hoping he'd heard something from the airlines.

Fifteen minutes passed, and Derek still hadn't replied. It was seven thirty, so she knew it was even later in New York, but he'd promised to call at nine, so he _couldn't _have gone to bed. He usually carried his phone with him, especially over the past week of their separation, which made it more difficult to understand why he hadn't responded to her text, but at least he'd call soon.

Meredith's stomach growled, inaudible over the din of the bar, which was becoming more and more crowded as the night progressed. She hadn't eaten since her light lunch, and tequila and bar nuts weren't going to cut it for her dinner. She should probably eat soon, definitely before she talked to Derek. Theoretically, she could eat at the bar and stay with her friends, but tonight, even _she_ didn't think she could stomach bar fare. "I'm going to head home," she decided when Izzie's rant about her disrespectful interns gave way to a lull in conversation.

Cristina frowned, while Izzie and Alex shrugged indifferently. "Are you sure?" George asked as his forehead creased with concern.

"I'm fine," Meredith nodded. "I haven't had a drink in almost an hour." She touched her fingers to her nose in an effort to illustrate her sobriety. "See? Look—Z,Y,X,W—" she paused and bit her lower lip. Reciting the alphabet backward wasn't an easy task sober; she could do it, but it required more effort than she wanted to exert—and what did she have to prove anyway? "Whatever," she insisted with a shake of her head. "I'm not drunk. Perfectly okay to drive."

"That not what I meant," George replied. "Are you sure you want to be at home alone?"

"I'll be fine," she repeated. George looked unconvinced. "Derek's supposed to call soon," she admitted.

Cristina muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "Of course he is", but Meredith ignored her. After promising to make sure the spare key was hidden for Izzie—who'd left her keys at home that morning to ride to the hospital with Alex--Meredith left money on the table to cover her drinks, then gathered her coat and purse to leave. Outside of the bar, she shivered immediately and slipped her coat on as she crossed the parking lot to her Jeep. When she got home, she'd find something to eat. Maybe make some coffee, to warm her up—and then a hot bath, maybe. She rarely had the house to herself these days, and after the day she'd had, she deserved a little indulgence.

* * *

By the time she pulled in the driveway, Meredith had decided that bath trumped dinner. She perched on the edge of the tub, rubbing her arms to warm them, as hot water filled the bath and steam fogged the bathroom mirrors. Before she lowered herself into the water, she made sure her phone was resting within reach on top of her clean clothes—just in case Derek called early. She sighed deeply and slid down slowly, letting the water cover her body and cancel out the chill from the air outside. She kept her head above the water so that she could listen for the phone, but within a few minutes, fatigue had laid claim to her muscles, and quickly drifted happily into a semi-conscious daze.

Her bath might have lasted five minutes or thirty—Meredith had lost track—but she didn't get out until the water had turned lukewarm and lost its appeal. She dried off hastily, eager to be dressed before the cold could set in again, and as she tugged one of her Dartmouth shirts over her head, she couldn't help but smile when she noticed that it was Derek's favorite—the one with the hole in the neck.

She noticed the time on the kitchen clock when she opened the refrigerator in search of something that might pass as dinner. It was nearly eight-thirty, and still Derek hadn't replied to her text. She could hold out another thirty minutes to talk to him—especially when her kitchen raid turned up all the necessary ingredients for grilled cheese—but she was a little irritated that he hadn't even bothered to respond. She took her frustration out on the cabinets, banging the doors as she rummaged for a skillet for her sandwich.

Grilled cheese was one of the few things that Meredith could be trusted to cook reasonably well – and with good reason. It was one of her favorite comfort foods, and had gotten her through countless nights in college and med school. Even during her trip to Europe, with all the fine cuisine available at all the best restaurants she and Sadie could find, Meredith had been perfectly happy to buy gourmet cheese and use it to make a sandwich in her Paris hotel room with the clothes iron. Looking back, she allowed that that may not have been the most _hygienic_ practice, but it was a moot point now. What mattered was that she didn't have Derek, _did_ have a half-sister and not a clue how to deal with her, and that there was a bottle of tequila in the liquor cabinet—just in case the sandwich didn't do its job.

After she flipped her sandwich to cook the opposite side, Meredith knelt in front of the fridge, shuffling its contents around in search of a cold bottle of water. She spotted one tucked behind the milk, and grabbed it just as the doorbell chimed at the front door.

Meredith scowled as she straightened to her full height, and left the water next to the stove. "Damn it, Izzie—" she muttered. She'd left the key outside for her, just like she'd agreed. Izzie had been tipsy when she'd left her at Joe's, but Meredith couldn't imagine that she'd gotten _that_ drunk within the past hour.

She unlocked the wooden door and flung it open, and then froze where she stood. She gasped, inhaling a sharp breath of cold air that burned as it filled her lungs, and her eyes grew wide with surprise. A shriek of surprise lodged somewhere in her throat, and her knees went weak, threatening to fail on the spot.

"Are you going to let me in?" Derek asked, a slow grin spreading across his face. His eyes danced happily, but Meredith remained rooted in the doorway. He waited a moment for her response, then took a small step forward when she could only stare at him in wordless disbelief. "I have to tell you, this isn't the reaction I was hoping for—" he smirked.

That smug smile was all Meredith needed to confirm the seemingly impossible reality: Derek was here. In Seattle. Outside her front door. It was really him. He was really here. She didn't know how or why, but all that mattered was that a split second after he'd smiled at her like that, she'd thrown herself into his arms, and now she _felt_ him everywhere. His hands were on her back, clutching her against his chest so tightly that she could barely draw a breath, slowly caressing her as he buried his face in her hair and his lips found the spot just behind her right ear.

She didn't even realize that he'd lifted her off the ground until he gently lowered her and her bare feet hit the cool stone of the porch. "What are you doing here?" she asked desperately. "I thought—you said—you were just in New York—"

"I lied," he grinned sheepishly. He kept one arm curled tightly around her as he brought the other to her face and cupped her cheek in his palm. "I was at the airport about to board my plane when I called you earlier. I changed my flight yesterday. I wanted to surprise you. Are you mad?"

"No," Meredith laughed and laid her head against his shoulder, shutting her eyes as he tightened his hold on her and the fingers of his free hand slowly raked through her hair. How could she be mad? Sure, he'd lied to her and made her upset that he wouldn't be home tomorrow as planned—but he'd shown up _before_ he was supposed to be home—before she'd even expected another phone call. It was impossible to be angry with him, not when he'd done something so incredibly sweet, so perfectly what she needed.

"I know it's just a day—" he continued, murmuring his apologies in her ear as her fingertips dug into his back. "I should have come back days ago, and a few hours—I know it barely matters—"

She raised her head and met his eyes. "No, it does," she assured him. "It matters a lot."

He frowned slightly and brushed a stray tear from her cheek. "Damn it, Mere, you weren't supposed to cry," he whispered.

She hadn't realized that she _was_ crying until then; she was shaking too, and wasn't sure that Derek's hands _weren't_ the only things keeping her on her feet. "I'm just---shock," she shook her head as she stammered. "I wasn't expecting…at all…I…"

"Shh," Derek grinned, as if to say "I know" and "Me too." His blue eyes found hers and held her gaze as he combed his fingers through her hair again; he pressed his lips together thoughtfully as his hand slipped to the back of her head and gently held her still as he stepped into her. The first kiss was soft, hesitant—a question left on her lips, and it took her a moment to find the presence of mind to return the kiss. He kept his hand firm on her neck so that she couldn't break the kiss, but he needn't have bothered. He kissed her again immediately, another question, but one asked with more confidence, and she answered more quickly, pressing her body against his as her hands slid up his chest and around his neck. She'd kissed Derek more times than she could begin to count, but this…after weeks of _not_ touching, this was both new and familiar and comforting and unsettling, and altogether perfect.

Derek's lips left hers and he sighed happily as he drew a breath. "I've missed you."

"Me too," Meredith murmured. She'd kissed him again before he could say anything else, but he didn't seem to mind. The nervous, hesitant kisses were gone, replaced by fervent, demanding kisses that she returned just as eagerly, just as hungrily. She couldn't remember why she'd ever thought that holding off on kissing him was a good idea, not when this felt so right, and so good. Derek did amazing things with his lips and tongue and hands, and the thrill of their reunion was almost enough to make his absence worth it.

She melted into him, let him guide her movements and take control (there would be time to turn the tables later), only protesting with a soft whimper when he backed her against the wall and her head hit it a little too hard. Her cry was swallowed by his kiss, but he still pulled back and frowned at her in concern. "You okay?" he breathed. She nodded and started to kiss him again, but he shook his head and took a step back. "Can we move this inside? Not that I wouldn't stand here and kiss you all night, but—"

Her lips were tingling, but with Derek's mouth temporarily removed, she finally registered how numb her fingers and toes felt, and knew that that had nothing to do with the kissing. Derek's fingers skimmed the hem of her shirt, and as one fingertip brushed her bare skin, she shivered at the icy touch. "Inside is good," she agreed, taking his hand in hers and tugging him toward the front door with a mischievous smile.

"Are we alone?" Derek asked, temporarily relinquishing her hand so that he could shrug out of his coat.

"Izzie and Alex are at Joe's," Meredith nodded. "The house is ours."

"Good," Derek grinned and caught her around the waist, yanking her back into his arms and another kiss. "I'm sorry if I upset you. I just wanted to make sure you were surprised when I showed up."

"But we just talked yesterday," Meredith replied. This was all still so surreal—Derek was definitely here, but it didn't make any sense. "We made plans for a date—"

"I didn't want you to suspect anything," Derek shrugged. "We can still have our date." He paused and his eyes narrowed in concentration. "Do I smell—burning cheese?"

Meredith blanched. "Damn it!" she yelped and tore away from Derek, dashing into the kitchen where she found what _had_ been her dinner smoking and bubbling on the stove. She quickly moved the skillet to a cool burner, turned off the stove, and opened the window over the sink to air out the kitchen. When she turned around, Derek was prodding the burned sandwich with a spatula, his lips twisting into a smirk as the blackened edges crumbled with each poke. His eyes sparkled devilishly, and Meredith glared at him.

"Don't say anything," she warned. He pressed his lips together, but his shoulders shook with the effort of restraining his laughter. "Don't—" she said again, but it was an empty threat. The pitiful remains of her dinner were so typically Meredith that she could barely stop herself from laughing.

"Oh, Mere," he sighed as he drew her into another embrace. "God, I've missed you."

She burst into giggles as his lips found the corner of her mouth. "I'm sure you didn't miss my cooking," she replied. "You're going to leave me, now that you've had your mother to spoil you—"

"Mm, no," Derek disagreed immediately. "I'm not leaving you. I figured out a long time ago that you wouldn't be the domestic one in this relationship. Are you still hungry?" She nodded. "Okay," he said, planting a quick peck on her lips. "Do you still keep the takeout menus in here?" he asked as pulled open the drawer stuffed full of brightly-colored flyers from every delivery service in the area. "I'm pretty sure you promised me Chinese."

Meredith wrinkled her nose in distaste. She was hungry enough that even Chinese food sounded edible, though it still wouldn't be her first choice. Technically, she _had_ promised Derek, but maybe she could talk him out of it. "I promised kissing, too," she reminded him. "I might be willing to make a trade."

"A trade?" Derek repeated, quirking an eyebrow in interest. "What kind of trade?"

Meredith bit her lip and shrugged playfully. "Anything else for dinner, and I _might_ be willing to give you second base tonight."

Derek laughed. "_Give _me? I was planning on stealing second no matter what."

"Oh were you?" Meredith retorted. "What happened to our rules?"

"Rules said no _sex_," Derek grinned. "Third, and we'll order pizza."

"No third," Meredith shook her head. "If we go that far, we might as well just go for sex—"

"Sounds like a plan," Derek agreed immediately. He stepped into her, taking her waist in both hands as he tilted his head to kiss her. The paper menu crinkled between her body and the counter as he backed her into it. The edge pushed against the small of her back, but with his tongue in her mouth, she barely registered the discomfort.

She didn't pull away until Derek's hands slid to her hips, gripping them tightly as he hoisted her onto the counter. His breath was hot on her neck as he trailed kisses from her earlobe to the hollow of her throat. "No," she murmured as he nipped at her collarbone. "No sex. No deal. Order your Chinese."

He gave her a cocky grin and kissed her lips once more. "Are you sure?" She nodded, and he left her on the counter while he sought out the cordless phone. She expected him to come back, but when she heard him talking in the living room, she frowned and hopped off the counter.

"What are you doing?" she asked when she found him.

He pressed the off button with his thumb and laid the phone on top of the liquor cabinet. "Ordering dinner," he replied simply. "It should be here in twenty minutes. I might starve before then."

"You poor thing," Meredith smiled michievously as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "I know something we could do to pass the time…take your mind off being hungry…"

"Oh really?" Derek grinned. "What's your prescription, Dr. Grey?"

She kissed him in reply, and he slowly pushed her toward the couch. She felt the couch behind her knees, and in one swift movement, spun Derek around and shoved her hands against his chest. His legs buckled, but he refused to release his hold on her, and as he collapsed on the couch, she fell giggling on top of him. Derek's hands moved quickly, slowly, deliberately to arrange her how he wanted her, and as lips met over and over and over again, fingers and palms traced familiar paths that they'd missed for far too long.

Meredith made swift work of pulling Derek's sweater over his head, but the buttons of the white shirt he'd worn underneath (leave it to Derek to actually dress up for a cross-country flight) proved a more significant challenge. In her defense, Derek was very adept at distracting her, and it was nearly impossible to stay focused when he was doing such delicious things with his mouth and tongue. He growled in displeasure when she pulled back and her fingers left his hair to fumble with the button. Before she knew what was happening, Derek shifted his weight and flipped her over. She yelped as his weight pushed her into the cushions, but any further protest was muffled by Derek's mouth against her lips as his hands pinned hers on either side of her head. She struggled and squirmed, trying to free her hands; she hated not being able to touch and tease, and Derek knew it, damn him.

"Derek—" she pleaded, forgetting that that was the worst thing she could do if she wanted him to give her her way. He grinned down at her, and surprisingly released his hold. As soon as he kissed her again, her hands were tangled in his curls, reveling in how they felt twisted and coiled around her fingers. Even with the use of her hands restored, with Derek on top, Meredith no longer held any illusion that she was in control. Derek wouldn't push her further than she was willing, but she was putty under his hands. When he made good on his promise and his hands disappeared under her shirt, she could only hiss his name on a ragged breath; his eyes gleamed devilishly and he smirked when he discovered that she hadn't bothered putting on a bra after her bath. The kisses and caresses that followed blurred her senses until all that she really knew, all that really mattered, was _Derek_.

Seconds and minutes ran together. She'd missed him…dear god, she'd missed him, and the more he kissed her like _this_, and the more his fingers and hands touched her like _that_, the more she began to wonder how bad it would be if she _did_ let him go to third, or even if she took him upstairs to her bed. Not that they needed a bed—their first time, the very first time, had been on this couch—but still…would it be so awful if she _did_? Suddenly, he pulled back, leaving her staring up at him with a puzzled frown.

"Mm, what are you doing?" she murmured, sitting up slightly to draw him into another kiss

A hum of pleasure rumbled in his throat, but he pulled back again, smoothing her hair from her face with both hands and pressing his lips to her forehead. "We need to stop."

"No," Meredith took his advantage of the break in his focus to turn the tables, flipping him onto his back. She straddled him and placed both palms on his chest to steady herself as she leaned down and caught his lower lip between her teeth.

"Mm, Mere," he mumbled, sliding his hands down her torso to settle on her hips. She ignored him and kissed him again, and again, until his hands closed around her wrists and pushed her off. "Mere, Mere, stop," he breathed.

She huffed a sigh of frustration. "Why?"

He placed one hand on the small of her back as he sat up, then gently moved her off his lap. "If we don't, I'm not going to be able to," he grinned. "Besides, I have something for us."

The intrigue was enough to at least partially deflect the disappointment that he wasn't kissing her anymore. "You do?"

"Mm," he smiled. "Wait here."

Meredith felt the heat that had flushed her face and chest and took a deep breath. She wasn't sure yet whether she was happy that Derek had stuck to their rules. The last time they'd tried this, he'd pushed her almost from the first second to give in on the sex ban; the fact he was trying to respect her rules this time would _seem_ to indicate a change in him, a real commitment to making things work—like he'd promised. She could hardly fault him for doing exactly what she'd asked him to, but damn him for getting her hot and bothered and then backing off; she didn't remember ever torturing _him_ like that.

He returned with the leather bag he usually used as his work briefcase, and sat down on the couch with her before reaching inside to produce an bottle of opaque green glass. "I um…I had the cab driver stop on the way from the airport so I could buy this," he explained, placing the bottle of champagne in her hands for her inspection. "I thought…new year, new start? For us?" he added hopefully. "It's corny, isn't it? I know, it—"

Meredith shook her head and smiled slowly. "It's you," she decided. "It is very corny, but it's you." She looked down at the bottle and bit her lower lip thoughtfully. "Can we open it?"

"Of course," Derek agreed. He took the bottle from her and disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the cork pop, and a moment later, Derek reappeared with the open bottle and two champagne flutes.

"I'm onto you, you know," Meredith teased as he poured a glass for her.

Derek laughed. "What do you mean?"

"You knew I went to Joe's earlier," she pointed out. "And now you brought champagne? You're trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage."

"Would it work?" he grinned playfully.

"We made rules…" she said, as much to remind Derek as to remind herself. It was starting to seem like a stupid rule, but she suspected that once the shock of Derek's surprise and the rush of hormones ebbed, she'd be grateful that he'd made her stop.

"I know," Derek nodded. He took a sip of champagne, then gave her a leering smirk. "But you said there were loopholes…and you have always been very flexible…"

Meredith rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smiling. "Stay tonight," she offered. "No sex, but—you could stay tonight, if you wanted—"

Derek quirked an eyebrow. "If?" he said incredulously.

Meredith wrinkled her nose. "I guess that was kind of stupid, huh?"

"A little," Derek agreed. He lifted to bottle to top off her champagne, and pressed a soft kiss to her lips as the doorbell rang. "I'll be right back."

Meredith cleared off the coffee table while Derek answered the door and paid for their dinner. The champagne and their glasses remained on the table, while Izzie's magazines went in a chair across the room. She suspected that Derek would use chopsticks—because that was the sort of obnoxiously accurate thing that Derek would do—but she retrieved a fork for herself when she went into the kitchen for bowls. When she returned to the living room, Derek had removed the cartons from the brown paper bag, and the steam from the food rose in a faint cloud as he opened the first carton.

"I'm pretty sure champagne and Chinese food were never meant to go together," Meredith observed as she settled on the couch next to Derek.

"Maybe not," Derek allowed as he examined the contents of the largest container. "Do you want chicken or shrimp?"

Meredith prepared a bowl of shrimp and white rice, while Derek ate some sort of spicy chicken; the scent enough was enough to make her nose burn. They ate quietly for several minutes, and Meredith found herself watching Derek intently, as though he might disappear if she took her eyes off him for a moment.

He caught her gaze and paused with a bite of chow mein halfway to his mouth. "What?" he asked. "Do I have soy sauce on my face or something?"

"No," Meredith smiled softly. "It's just…you're really here."

"I just spent twenty minutes making out with you, and _now_ you realize that I'm not a hallucination?" Derek teased. His eyes softened, and he leaned over to leave a light kiss on her lips. "I'm home, Mere. I'm staying."

He was staying--and she believed him. As they ate, they gradually slipped into talking, and he finally told her the whole story of how he'd planned her surprise. How a talk with his sister had made him realize how stupid it was to stay for the sake of staying, when he wanted to be home with her so badly—how he'd called to change his flight yesterday, how his sister's birthday dinner had doubled as his farewell party, how he'd taken his mother to lunch, and then left for the airport. She heard about the woman with twin infants who'd sat in front of him, and how the babies had cried for the entire flight. She tried not to laugh at him when he told her how an elderly woman had nearly assaulted him with her cane when she accused him of stealing her suitcase at the baggage claim in Seattle. His face lit up as he described his own excitement on the cab ride to her house, how he'd pictured her face the moment she opened the door, how he'd planned to kiss her the second he saw her, how he'd feared that she wouldn't be home or that one of her roommates would answer the door instead.

In return, she confessed how disappointed she'd been at the idea that he could be delayed a few days. She knew he wanted to hear how she'd been dealing with the aftermath of her _other_ holiday surprises, how she'd managed the revelations she'd had after her brunch with her sisters, but she was reluctant to spoil the happiness of having Derek home. Instead, she filled him in on what had happened in the hospital during his absence, and asked him more questions about his trip home.

As much as he claimed to have spent the duration of his visit missing her, it was evident that he _had_ enjoyed seeing his family. In time, the conversation switched from what he _had_ done with his family to what he _wanted_ to do with her, when he took her to meet them. It scared her a little that he spoke in terms of "when" and not "if", but she reminded herself that she couldn't expect to be with Derek and not meet his family, and tried her best not to let her anxiety show. He wasn't talking about taking her tomorrow; he was talking about a distant "when", at least a year out. And the way he talked about his family, the way he assured her that they were "so excited" about the prospect of meeting _her_—it didn't seem like such an inevitable disaster.

"I brought you something," Derek said after they'd been talking for nearly an hour and a half and the leftover Chinese food lay cold and forgotten on the coffee table.

Meredith lifted her head from his chest, where she'd been resting for the last twenty minutes. "I thought we said we weren't doing Christmas gifts this year?" she asked nervously. It would be a very Derek thing to do, to buy her something when they'd agreed not to; if he had, she'd feel guilty. First Christmas together, and she'd screwed it up. She supposed she could always just sleep with him after all, but that wasn't really how she wanted the reunion sex to go.

"It's not a Christmas gift," he assured her, stroking her hair fondly and pressing his lips to her forehead as he sat them up. He reached for his bag on the floor and brought out a small envelope. "I brought a tin of my mom's cookies, too," he said, "but they're in my checked bag. I could put these in my carry-on."

He opened the envelope and handed her a folded sheet of white cardstock. "Jaime wanted me to give this to you," he explained. "Let me know if you need help translating."

Meredith unfolded the paper and found a note written in loose, primitive print—crayon, it looked like—and an illustration hand-drawn at the bottom. "'Dear Aunt Meredith,'" she read, pausing to look at Derek with a raised eyebrow.

"I told her we weren't married," Derek defended himself sheepishly. "She's five. She doesn't really understand—it's just easier for her to call you Aunt Meredith."

"She called me Meredith on the phone," Meredith replied skeptically as she returned to Jaime's card. "'Uncle Derek is sad you're in…cattle?'" Meredith guessed.

Derek looked over her shoulder with a confused frown. She pointed to the letters that spelled "Cattel". "Ah," Derek nodded in understanding. "Seattle."

"Oh, now I see it," Meredith realized. "'Uncle Derek is sad you're in Seattle. But I am happy he is here. I miss him very much. You are very pretty. Love, Jaime.'"

Derek's lips found the side of her neck in a lazy kiss as he reached around her to describe Jaime's drawing. "She tells me that this—" he indicated a stick figure with black crayon hair, a blue shirt, and red shorts, "is me, and this is you, with the yellow hair and purple shirt. She used the picture of you I have in my wallet as her model. That's Jaime, in the middle. We're taking her to the zoo in Central Park."

"She's precious," Meredith grinned. "Did you bring me something else?"

"So demanding," Derek teased. He gave her the other item from the envelope, smaller and glossier than the first.

It took Meredith a second to realize what she held in her hand, but when she did, she laughed and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. "Is this you and Mark?" she asked. "In the Christmas sweaters?"

"Mm," he replied. "I think we're about six there. I'm pretty sure Mark started going gray the next year."

Meredith ran her fingers over the photo of Derek's six year old self. If she looked closely, she could see the man that he'd become in the little boy's face. The eyes were the same, the confidence in the smile. It was Derek. "You were adorable," she decided. "What happened to you?"

"I'm still adorable," he said, sounding very self-assured. "Now, remember our deal. I get to see the pink hair pictures."

"I'll look for them tomorrow," Meredith promised. "I think we can find better ways to spend tonight."

He gave her a boyish grin and leaned back on the couch, pulling her on top of him. His fingers raked into her hair, but instead of kissing her right away, he held her gaze, staring wordlessly into her eyes as her breath hitched in anticipation. She loved this about him, how he made her feel, how so much could be said without words, how he could make her quiver without touching her. His lips found her jaw first, and he made his way to her lips slowly, pausing to kiss her cheek, her forehead, her neck, anywhere _but_ her mouth before her patience wore out and she ended his teasing by kissing him herself.

"Mm," he sighed happily when she broke the kiss. "You don't know how much I've missed doing that."

Before she could respond, twin lights shone through the window, dancing on the wall opposite their couch. "What was that?" Derek asked.

Meredith shook her head as she pushed herself off his chest and crossed the room to draw back the curtains. "Izze and Alex," she muttered. "Come on," she said urgently, hurrying back to the couch and tugging Derek's hand. "Upstairs."

"What about--?" Derek started, gesturing at the mess spread across the coffee table.

Meredith rolled her eyes and grabbed Jaime's card, the picture, and what was left of their bottle of champagne. "Leave the rest," she said. Derek looked puzzled, but followed her without question. She knew she was acting bizarre—at least, more bizarre than she normally did—but she really didn't want to have to explain the ordeal she'd been through at lunch over the will-they-won't-they reunion sex. Although—telling Izzie tomorrow how close she'd come to walking in on reunion sex might be fun.

"What are we doing?" Derek asked as Meredith slammed the bedroom door shut and locked it behind them.

"I don't know," Meredith admitted, shoving a stack of clothes aside on her dresser to make room for the champagne and pictures. "I just…didn't want them to know you're here."

"You don't think they'll figure it out when they see the stuff downstairs?" Derek pointed out.

"They'll figure out I brought _someone_ home," Meredith replied playfully. "It doesn't have to be you." She grinned and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. "So…where were we?"

"I was sharing a piece of my childhood," Derek replied. "And there was kissing. If I get to pick, can we go back to the sharing?"

It wouldn't have been Meredith's first choice; she sank onto the bed with a soft sigh. "I guess."

Derek slipped his shoes off and settled on the bed, leaning against the headboard. He held his arms out and Meredith obligingly curled up next to him, laying her head on his chest as her arms wrapped around his waist. "Talk to me," he requested. "I'm very grateful for the kissing—god knows I've missed kissing you—but I didn't come back early because I was worried that you weren't getting kissed enough."

Meredith took a slow breath. "I worked with Lexie today," she offered. Sort of. She'd sort of worked with Lexie today, if avoiding Lexie at every opportunity counted.

Derek's lips found the top of her head as he buried his face in her hair. "How was that?"

"Okay. I think she knows that something's going on—something to make me act weird around her," Meredith replied. "Well…weirder than normal."

"Hm," Derek chuckled softly. "Did you think about just talking to her?"

"Have you met me?" Meredith retorted.

"I know," Derek answered seriously; he of all people knew that Meredith didn't just _talk_ about problems. "I just…I don't want you to throw this away, Mere. Lexie and Molly…they're as innocent in this as you are."

"I know. I don't—I don't think I want to tell her," Meredith confessed. She'd been working this out in her mind the past few days, but telling Derek was the first time she'd acknowledged out loud how much the Thatcher situation had dominated her thoughts. "Not just because it's awkward, but—what good does it do for her to know? My childhood was already shattered, and my mother…Lexie had a good relationship with Susan. She's already lost her mother—I don't want to take the memory of Susan from her, too. It doesn't do any good for her to know that Susan was the other woman—not right now, anyway."

"I told you that you could do this," Derek said. "The sister thing. I told you that you'd be fine."

Meredith lifted her head to protest. "I'm not—"

Derek shook his head and cut her off. "You're trying to protect your little sister from a truth that might hurt her. That's a very big sister thing to do. Trust me—I have four of them." He brought one hand to her face and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, smiling softly, as though he were trying to memorize every detail of her face. "So…how are _you_? Speaking of painful truths…"

"I'm okay," she assured him. Derek was in her bed; she was better than okay. "Better now. I go back to therapy next Wednesday."

"Mm," Derek nodded. "Did you still want me to go with you?"

Meredith shook her head. "Not this time. I'll talk to Dr. Hadden and figure out when she can see both of us."

"Okay," he agreed. "When you decide, just say the word."

"Is that how this works now?" Meredith asked playfully. "I say jump and you ask how high?"

"Mm. Sure," Derek grinned. "Just don't tell my sisters. They already think I'm whipped."

"You're not whipped," Meredith said. After a moment, she tilted her head to one side thoughtfully and smirked. "Well, maybe a little."

Derek laughed, and a mischievous gleam replaced the fatigue in his eyes. "Oh really? I'll show you whipped." Before Meredith knew what was happening, she was flat on her back with one of Derek's hands holding both of her wrists. She shrieked as his free hand assaulted her ribs, ending any chance of Alex and Izzie _not_ knowing that she had company.

"Derek, Derek, please," she begged, writhing as he continued tickling her without mercy.

A dismayed groan filled the hallway outside the door. "Seriously?" Izzie's voice cried. "Alex—it's _Shepherd_!"

"Derek!" Meredith hissed. "Do you know what they think we're doing?"

"Let them think it," Derek grinned and released his hold on her wrists. "Now, do you still think I'm whipped?"

The smart thing would have been to let him win—or think he'd won—but Meredith was nothing if not competitive. "What if I told you to kiss me?" she challenged.

Derek shook his head defiantly. "Not doing it."

"Please?" Meredith tried, giving him her best soft-eyed pout. "Pretty please?" She grinned as he relented and planted a firm kiss on her lips. "Whipped," she whispered, scrambling off the bed before he had a chance to grab her again. "I'm going to go change for bed."

"_Go_ change for bed?" Derek repeated. "Go where?"

"The bathroom," Meredith shrugged. "I can't strip in front of you."

"Mm, you _could_," Derek disagreed as she opened one of her dresser drawers. "I'd be good. No touching, I promise."

She tossed one of his t-shirts at him and shook her head. "No touching. No looking. I'll be right back."

Derek remained on the bed as she shut the door to her bathroom, but not without pouting. Meredith peeled off her Dartmouth shirt (in Meredith fashion, she'd managed to spill champagne down the front at some point) and replaced it with a black camisole. Normally, she'd freeze at night without long sleeves, but tonight—tonight she had Derek, and she trusted him to keep her warm. When she brushed her teeth, she couldn't help noticing in the mirror how pink her cheeks were, still flushed with pleasure from Derek's attention. The muscles in her face were already sore from smiling, and her lips were swollen from a night filled with weeks' worth of repressed kisses. It had been a long time since she'd felt this fulfilled…this complete…this _happy_. It was nice, to feel happy and safe for a change.

When she turned off the bathroom light and opened the door, she stopped abruptly and smiled fondly at the scene before her. Derek had replaced his dress shirt with the Columbia tee, and stripped down to his boxers. His day clothes lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed, and Derek was stretched out, dozing comfortably with one arm thrown across his face. Meredith crept to the bed and gingerly stretched out next to him, carefully moving his arm so that she could kiss his cheek. She murmured his name softly until he groaned and mumbled something unintelligible in reply. "Hey," she said. "Why didn't you tell me you were so tired?"

"Didn't know," he muttered. "I laid down to wait for you and the jet lag kicked in."

The numbers on the clock glowed red over his shoulder. "You don't want to wait up for the new year?" Meredith asked. "It's almost eleven."

"So tired, Mere," Derek grumbled. "Can we just sleep?"

"Sleep is good," Meredith agreed. Derek sat up just long enough to help her pull back the covers, then collapsed on his side of the bed before Meredith could turn off the bedside lamp. When she slipped into bed next to him, he hooked an arm around her waist and drew her to his side; his lips brushed hers, but she couldn't be sure that that had even been a conscious action. She nestled her head under his chin and closed her eyes, confident that Derek's arms around her, his warmth and scent filling her bed, and the rise and fall of his breath against her would soon lull her into the deepest sleep she'd had since he'd left a week earlier.

"Derek?" she murmured. "Are you still awake?"

"Mm."

She'd take that as a yes. "I'm really glad you're home."

She felt his breath in her hair, and then a whisper of a kiss on her forehead as his arms tightened around her. "Me too."


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Hi. My name is L. I suck at updating. If you're still reading this, thanks.**

Something was off. He couldn't place it, but Derek knew that something wasn't normal about today. He'd felt uneasy since the alarm by Meredith's bed had gone off at five A.M. It had clattered to the floor as soon as he'd flung his arm at it; twenty minutes later, that desperate bid for just a few more minutes' sleep resulted in Derek waking again to the sound of Meredith's muttered cursing and frantic pacing around the bedroom. He hadn't meant to make her late—he'd only wanted a little longer to sleep, a little longer to lie in bed with her—but somehow that excuse hadn't helped pacify her as she'd tugged on yesterday's jeans and thrown her hair up into a messy ponytail.

He didn't like being on the receiving end of Meredith's wrath, but he couldn't deny how irresistible she was, huffing in anger and slamming doors, her lips set into a thin line. If he hadn't thought she'd have slapped him, he might have pulled her back into bed and made her even later, but he'd been discouraged by the glares accompanying the very vivid swearing shot in his direction. And, as scary as Meredith could be when she was angry, he'd found her less than pleasant demeanor that morning oddly comforting. He'd been back from New York for two full days, and spent them alternately enraptured with the simple joy of _being_ with Meredith and anxiously waiting for the illusion to shatter. He loved Meredith—loved that they'd spent these few days together and untainted by the demons of their past—but he'd known that it wouldn't last, and he hadn't wanted it to, not really. It wouldn't be pretty, but he wanted to move on, to work through their issues, to grow and evolve and heal—and for that to happen, they couldn't put on a happy front and ignore the floodwaters under the bridge. Affectionate, bright and shiny Meredith was a nice diversion from their normal, but he'd welcomed the normalcy restored by her mood that morning. She was still _his_ Meredith.

So it wasn't Meredith being grouchy that was throwing him off today. It was something else, something he couldn't place. He'd only had one surgery, an hour after he'd gotten to the hospital that morning, and he was scheduled for office hours the rest of the afternoon. Maybe that was the problem – he'd come back to mountains of paperwork, and even after two full days back in the office, he'd barely made a dent. Undented paperwork meant less time in the OR, which in turn meant less time with Meredith at work—after all, Seattle Grace was a teaching hospital. She was his girlfriend, but he was responsible as her teacher, too, and he could hardly qualify keeping him company as an exercise to further her medical career. Instead, he'd had her assigned to the OR with Weller all day, and when he'd last checked in on her from the gallery, Meredith had been so focused on the procedure Weller had been performing that she hadn't even noticed Derek's eyes on her back. He'd watched her for fifteen minutes or so before slipping out of the gallery, still unnoticed, and returned to the regrettable solitude of his office and tedium of paperwork.

The erratic black slashes of his own handwriting blurred together, and Derek squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then blinked rapidly in an effort to refocus. Instead, his gaze shifted to the photos by his computer monitor; the picture of Meredith he kept on his desk had been joined a few days earlier by another. The first morning back from New York, he and Meredith had slept in, but after a morning that included a trek out to his land to check on the trailer, a mild hangover from the champagne, and persistent jet lag, he'd convinced her that a nap wouldn't be a bad idea. He'd curled up with her on her bed, but when he awoke an hour later, Meredith had been gone.

He'd found her sitting cross-legged on the floor in her mother's den, covered in dust after an excursion to the attic and poring over the contents of an equally dusty cardboard box. He'd plucked a stray cobweb from her hair as he squatted next to her and kissed her cheek.

"_You didn't nap long," he'd observed. _

_She'd turned her head so that his next kiss fell on her lips. "Wasn't sleepy," she'd replied._

_For a moment, they'd stayed like that, forehead to forehead, and he'd stared into her eyes, trying to lose himself in the cool green. As a slow smile had curled the corners of his mouth, a playful smirk reached her eyes, and one quick kiss on his lips later, it was over. The moment had passed, seemingly the same second it had begun. Still, he'd sighed happily as she returned her attention to the box in front of her, and he'd wrapped his arms around her waist as he settled on the floor behind her. He'd rested his chin on her shoulder, and as he'd inhaled slowly, breathing in the faint traces of lavender left in her hair from her shower that morning, he'd finally noticed the contents of the box, coated with a thin film of dust, but still clearly identifiable._

"_What are you doing?" he'd asked. One hand had left its place on her stomach as he'd reached for the photo album, brushing his fingers over a faded photograph of a little-girl, no more than eight or nine, standing by a tree he recognized from Meredith's yard. Snow coated the lawn, and the girl's hands were covered by a pair of mittens that matched the atrocious knit cap covering her head of dirty blonde hair. He'd never imagined Meredith as the sort to willingly wear a toboggan topped with a pom-pom—even if it _was _the same shade of light purple that she loved so much now-- but there was no doubt that he was looking at a very young, very _happy_ Meredith_.

"_Finding a present for you," she'd replied matter-of-factly, as though his first thought upon finding her buried in childhood relics should have been that she was doing it for him. On second thought, he'd realized, it probably _should_ have been his first guess; Meredith rarely delved into her past on her own accord, usually only when he pried._

"_Mm," he'd pressed his lips to the side of her neck. "More importantly, what are you _wearing_ in that picture?"_

"_My grandmother knitted that hat for me," she'd replied with mock indignation. "And need I remind you about the Christmas sweaters? Besides…if you think that hat's ugly, you should see the one it replaced. It was awful..hideous brown and black stripes with these puff balls on strings…"_

"_You had a grandmother?" Derek had asked. Of course she'd had a grandmother, but he couldn't remember her ever mentioning family outside of Ellis and Thatcher._

"_Everyone has grandparents," she'd shrugged. "She died when I was nine. A couple of months after this picture, actually."_

_He'd watched quietly as she flipped through the albums, taking in image after image of a history Meredith had previously kept closely guarded from everyone, including him. The album in Meredith's lap had chronicled the deterioration of the smiling child with her lavender hat and gloves into a blank-faced, melancholy shell that much more closely resembled the dark and twisty Meredith he knew. He'd studied her face as she studied the photos, and watched her expression fall, watched the ripple of her throat as she swallowed memory after memory. Page after page, he'd hoped that he'd see _something_ that even remotely resembled a scene from his own childhood, something to indicate that she'd had at least some happy times, some staple experience of growing up that hadn't been denied her._

_She'd tossed the album containing her pre-teen years to the side, and removed a few more from the box before she'd found what she wanted in a small, dark green album. A slight smile had appeared on her face as she'd peeled back the plastic covering and slid a fingernail between the photo and adhesive page to pry the picture free._

"_There," she'd leaned back in his embrace, looking up to see his face as she gave him the photo. "Just like I promised."_

He'd nearly lost the argument to bring the picture to his office. She'd consented to share the photo of her freckle-faced, bubble-gum-pink-haired, twelve-years-younger self, but she'd stipulated that it was for his eyes only. She'd tried to argue that if he was allowed to display _her_ picture, she should be allowed to put the picture of Derek and Mark as kids in her cubby. Derek had only managed to dissuade her when he pointed out that _anyone_ could see the photo in her cubby, but the visitors to his private office could be screened more closely. In the end, he admitted that it probably wasn't so much his power of persuasion that won, but that the ensuing kissing had provided a more than adequate distraction to wear down her defenses.

It was hard to fully accept that the pretty girl hidden by her outrageous and over-the-top hair and makeup had grown up into the gorgeous woman he'd met in a bar and subsequently fallen madly in love with. Behind the heavy black eyeliner, he could make out a glimmer of her very formidable personality, but she seemed mellower now—and at least a little happier, which spoke volumes about how miserable the girl in the photo must have been.

She wasn't that girl anymore, though. She was happier and healthier, and most importantly, she was _his_. He'd spent nearly every possible second with her since he'd arrived home; he hadn't even managed more than that one brief visit to his trailer. Meredith had let him in her bed every night, and even though he knew that that was _technically_ breaking their rules, he hadn't protested. The first night, New Year's Eve, he'd been asleep hard and fast, barely able to think about anything beyond the pillow under his head and the general warmth of Meredith next to him. He'd wondered the second night whether it was a test, to see if he'd insist on following the rules or give in to what she knew he wanted. For a moment, he'd considered obeying the rules and going to the trailer, or at least camping out on the couch in her mother's old den, but the feeling of her curled up beside him, her body molding to fit all his dips and curves, and the way she tucked her head into the crook of his neck—it convinced him that it wasn't a trick. It was real; she really _wanted_ him in her bed at night, wanted him there when she woke up. Meredith wanted _him_.

His phone vibrated on the desk, and he smiled as he recognized the number of the incoming text. _Out of surgery. Lunch?_

Apparently, he'd been forgiven for making her late for work. Seizing the opportunity to temporarily abandon his paperwork, Derek started to key out a response. Before he could suggest meeting in the cafeteria, his office door swung open and a familiar blonde head peeked inside. He grinned and spun his office chair in Meredith's direction. Spots flickered in front of his eyes at the sudden motion; something was definitely off with him today, but he pushed the discomfort aside. Meredith was here; nothing else mattered as much.

"That was quick," he observed, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the plastic containers in her hand. "You didn't give me a chance to reply."

Meredith shrugged her shoulders and cleared a spot for herself on his desk, shoving his paperwork aside without regard for keeping it in order. He reached out to stop a stack of files from cascading over the edge as Meredith settled on the desk, dangling her legs over the edge, kicking them back and forth like a restless, fidgety child. "I brought lunch to you," she said. "I took a chance that you wouldn't say no."

"Mm," he caught her legs in his hands, gripping her calves as he rolled his chair back to the desk. "And to what do I owe this…personal delivery?"

"To show that I forgive you," Meredith replied as she snapped the lid off one of the containers.

"Forgive me?" Derek repeated. "For this morning? Or something else?"

"This morning, making me late," Meredith replied. "I can't afford to be in trouble with Bailey right now, and you messing up the alarm doesn't help me."

"But—" he started to protest.

Meredith leaned forward and cut him off with a quick kiss on his lips. "I said I forgive you," she grinned. "Now—_this_?" she continued, pointing at the picture he'd been admiring just moments before. "I thought we agreed you wouldn't have this out where people could see it."

"You didn't give me a chance to hide it," Derek defended himself. "You know, usually people _knock_ before entering a private office. Give the person inside an opportunity to prepare for their entrance."

"Fair enough," Meredith agreed. "But you shouldn't need to prepare for me. There shouldn't be anything you're hiding from me."

Her tone was light, teasing, but given the history he had of withholding or purposely concealing vital information from her, he couldn't help feeling slightly wounded by her words. He settled for a thoughtful hum and a slight smile; she tilted her head and studied him carefully.

"Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly. He didn't miss the worry in her eyes. The happiness that had filled them the past few days was clouded with uncertainty and hesitation.

"Yeah," he assured her with what he hoped was a more confident smile. "I'm just…feeling a little off today. I think it's the light," he added, gesturing to the fluorescent bulb over their heads. His office was usually dark, lit only by his desk lamp and another across the room, because he _hated_ the fluorescent lights standard in the hospital. Even though current medical literature wasn't clear on whether the bulbs caused migraines, Derek had noticed a correlation between his headaches and prolonged exposure to the lights, so he avoided them whenever possible, just in case. After the first two hours of paperwork by lamplight, however, his eyes (nearly forty years old, as his mother would remind him) had blurred and burned until he could no longer distinguish letters and numbers from one another.

"Poor thing," Meredith teased as she reached out and raked the fingers of one hand through his hair. He sighed softly as her nails scratched his scalp in one tantalizingly slow, delicious movement. "I think you've just been out of work for too long," she accused. "Your mother spoiled you and now you don't want to work."

"Mm, half right," Derek agreed. His mother _had_ spoiled him, and the time off—no matter how reluctant he'd been to take vacation—had been a much-needed respite, but by the end of it, he'd been itching to get back into the OR. He'd feel better, more like things were back to normal, when this paperwork was complete and he was able to schedule more surgeries—or at least, he hoped so. Eating would probably help his headache, too, he decided. He reached for the sandwich Meredith had brought him, adding the slice of tomato she'd removed so disdainfully from her own turkey-on-wheat. "You're off early tonight," he reminded her after a few bites. "Do you want to do something? Let me take you out to dinner?"

"Can't," she tossed her head, and a few tendrils of blonde hair pulled free from her ponytail, spilling forward to frame her face. Without thinking, he reached up to tuck the stray pieces behind her ear. "Therapy tonight."

"Ah," he remembered. "Right." He mentally chastised himself for the flare of annoyance at the inconvenient scheduling. Therapy was good for her. It was good for _them_. He couldn't begrudge a few hours without her when so much good could be done for her future—their future—in that time. "Rain check, then. How was your surgery?"

She nodded affirmatively as she quickly chewed her mouthful of sandwich and swallowed. "Good," she said. "The patient's back in PICU. No complications with the shunt replacement."

"Do you want me to tell you what I've been doing today?" Derek offered.

Meredith raised an eyebrow skeptically and smirked. "Stamping and signing papers? I'll pass. I'm sure it's an exhilarating story, though. Maybe you can tell me tonight, when I need something to help me fall asleep."

"Ouch," Derek hissed, feigning hurt. "That was mean."

"I'm not mean," Meredith replied. "Mean girlfriends don't let you sleep over or bring lunch to your office so that you can avoid the waves of needy interns and residents trying to get OR time now that you're back from vacation."

"There are needy interns and residents hunting me down?" Derek asked, casting a sidelong glance at his desk phone. He'd kept his calls forwarded to voicemail all day to avoid distractions, expecting that he'd be paged for anything that required his urgent attention. He didn't want to think about how many messages might be waiting for him.

"A few," she shrugged. "Mainly because there's a rumor going around the hospital that you've gotten a referral for another double barrel bypass coming in next week from Arizona."

Derek laughed, a short bark of amusement. "So _now_ the truth comes out," he grinned. "The sleepovers, the lunch? You're trying to bribe me into putting you on the case."

Meredith's face lit up like Christmas. "No, no bribing. I can think of bribes that would be much more effective than a turkey sandwich. But that's not the point. There _is _a case? It's true?"

Derek couldn't help but smile at her enthusiasm. "I thought you didn't want special treatment because we're together?" he teased. "You're not asking me to give you favors and put you on surgeries because of us, are you?"

"Of course not," Meredith replied. "But I would mention what an excellent learning opportunity it would be, and since I assisted you last time, I do have more experience with the procedure than any other resident on staff."

"Another resident could argue that that's exactly why I should let someone else have a shot," Derek pointed out.

Meredith smile faded, and he could see the question in her eyes. He hadn't told her about the Chief's visit to his office yesterday afternoon. The gossip about their reunion had reached him before Christmas, the Chief had said, but since Derek was leaving for his vacation, he'd felt the conversation could wait until the new year. Derek was still angry enough that he was trying _not_ to remember the details, but it had boiled down to another stern disapproval of Derek's relationship with Meredith and a warning that Richard had every intention of making sure that "his" hospital didn't suffer because of Derek's personal relationships. For his part, Derek had long ago reached the threshold of his patience for Richard's interference with Meredith's life, but at the same time, he knew that he needed to be careful. What Meredith had said so long ago was no less true now—Derek's reputation could take a hit from a relationship with her; she still had to prove herself.

He hated reminding her of the criticism that had shadowed her since her first day at the hospital, even before there had been a _them_ and she'd been that intern sleeping with her attending. From the moment Cristina Yang had discovered who Meredith's mother was, Derek had seen the begrudging looks other residents had shot at her every time her back was turned. It hadn't even been her own intern class—he'd overheard grumblings of suspected favoritism from third and fourth year residents when they'd learned who she was. For Derek, it had never mattered—and neither had the fact that they'd slept together. True, it may have made him a bit more…_predisposed_…to seek her out, at least in the beginning, but he knew talent when he saw it. From his first case with her, he'd known that Meredith had what it took to make it, regardless of who her mother had been or who she was dating.

Still, she'd never have a chance to prove herself if Derek wasn't careful not to dig her grave with the Chief. He didn't want to tell her about his conversation with Richard, not yet, not when he still couldn't bring himself to tell her about what had happened in the race for the Chief position. Instead, he offered a sigh and a half-smile. "We don't know if we're operating yet," he said finally. "The patient is coming in on Thursday. I've seen the films but I want new ones done here and I want to evaluate the patient here before I make a decision on whether he's a viable candidate for the surgery."

"But if he is…?" Meredith pressed. Derek didn't know how to respond, but in his hesitation, Meredith read her own answer and her face fell.

"It's not that I don't want you there, _if_ we operate," Derek tried to explain. "You know I would. I trust you in my OR, I trust your skills. _I_ know that you've earned your place in this program, and you pull your own weight in surgery, every time. But--"

"I get it," she shook her head. "It's not fair for me to _not_ get surgeries because of us, either."

"I know, Mere," Derek agreed gently. "It's just…one of those things we've got to work out. We've always known that this would be an obstacle for us…finding this balance. I know it's frustrating, but we'll get there." He rose slightly from his chair to press a placating kiss to her lips. "I don't like it either, but I have to admit, we've given the rumor mill in this hospital plenty to run on," he said softly. "I'm sure they're talking."

He didn't tell her that he'd already caught wind of a betting pool among the nurses; he had suspicions—completely unfounded, just a gut feeling—that Rose was somehow involved in it, and the last thing he wanted was for Meredith to find out. He offered her a reassuring smile instead. "We just won't give them anything else to talk about, and eventually they'll get bored with us. Things will balance out, and you'll get the surgeries you deserve. I can't promise you this one, but--"

"It's okay," she nodded. As if to prove that she didn't harbor any hard feelings or regrets, she moved the other half of his sandwich to the opposite side of the keyboard and eased herself off the desk and into his lap. "I guess I'll take you, if I can't have surgery."

"Mm, so I'm your consolation prize?" he grinned as he deftly tugged the elastic band from her hair, letting the loose waves fall to her shoulders. She leaned forward to kiss him, and his fingers automatically slid into her hair, slowly combing through the full length until his fingertips skimmed the ridges of her spine.

"Something like that," she replied playfully, and then kissed him again.

He lifted his hand from her back and brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. "You know, this is not at all how I'd planned to spend my lunch break," he told her.

"You should probably take care of all that paperwork," Meredith murmured as she tilted her head to kiss along his jaw. "Should I go? Stop distracting you?"

He wrapped one arm around her back possessively, but he caught a glimpse of the mischievous spark in her eyes and knew she had no intention of leaving. She was very good at the distracting, he had to admit. An absolutely intoxicating distraction. Her kisses were soft, light teases on his skin, nothing too heated—yet—but the fact that he wasn't entirely sure she'd locked the door when she came in had him a little worried. Most people would knock before they came in, but some—the Chief, Mark—didn't always observe that courtesy, and his department secretary in particular had been hovering most of the day.

If he were feeling better, he would make sure they were locked in, and then move their distracting to the couch, but as it was, he was barely able to focus. Meredith took her distracting seriously, and there wasn't much energy available to devote to worrying whether they were about to give the secretary yet another reason to look down her nose at Meredith. He couldn't think about that, not when he was too busy trying to catalogue the movements and placements of her lips and fingers, registering the rise and fall of her chest against his, absorbing her scent and taste and all at once, struggling _not_ to succumb to the pounding in his head and the uneasy feeling in his gut. A fleeting thought crossed his mind, and he wondered who exactly she was trying to distract. Herself, from her looming therapy appointment and having to face what she'd learned about her father and then largely refused to discuss or acknowledge. Maybe, like she so often did, she'd planned this to keep them both distracted from the tangled mess of their relationship and the seemingly impossible task of sorting it out, making it work. He knew it was inevitable; knew the honeymoon, so to speak, had to end soon. She _had _to feel it, too, and it would be like her to avoid what she saw coming. To deflect. Distract.

Maybe, she'd genuinely only intended to give him a break from his work. He didn't care.

A pager vibrated against his stomach, and Meredith pulled away as she fumbled to silence the device. He reached to his own hip instinctively before realizing that his pager lay on the desk next to his cell phone. Meredith's hair had fallen forward over her shoulders, shrouding her face as she studied the display, and he brushed it aside to kiss her cheek. "Do you have to go?"

"Yeah," she replied with a wistful smile. "It's Weller." With one last kiss to his lips, she stood up and gathered the trash from her lunch, tossing it into the trash can under his desk. She turned back to him and bit her lower lip hesitantly. "Before…I know it would be late because of therapy, but did _you_ want to go to dinner? I don't know how much food is at the house, so if you wanted—"

Derek smiled softly and shook his head. "No, it's okay. It's probably best anyway. I'm still not feeling great."

Meredith frowned sympathetically. "Anything I can do?"

He shook his head again and shuddered with another faint wave of nausea. "I really think it's just the headache," he replied. "I haven't had one this bad in a while. Can we just take it easy tonight?"

"Yeah," Meredith nodded. "Have you taken anything?"

He hadn't. Like most doctors he knew, Derek made a terrible patient. He knew Meredith would understand; she was equally difficult about allowing anyone to take care of her. "I'll be fine," he assured her. "If it gets worse, I'll take something."

"Okay," Meredith rolled her eyes. "Feel better."

"Thanks for lunch," he replied. "I'll see you tonight."

She kissed him goodbye, and a moment later, he was alone in his office again, still surrounded by stacks of work demanding completion. He glanced at his watch; Meredith had been with him just over thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of very welcome distraction, but now she was off to prep for another four-hour surgery, and he still had a solid five hours before his shift ended. He was beginning to suspect that the day would never end.

With a heavy sigh, Derek reached for a stack of manila folders marked with a green post-it, reminding him that they were due at the end of next week. Fellowship applications. The last thing he wanted to do was spend the afternoon poring over cover letters and CVs, but he picked up the first application and began evaluating the merits of a resident out of Fort Worth. Twenty minutes later, Derek had discovered that the Fort Worth resident had studied under a member of his intern class at Mt. Sinai, and Derek typed out a quick email requesting more specifics on the candidate's qualifications. Just as he hit the send button, he was startled by a knock on the door.

"Come in," he called. The door cracked open to reveal light blue scrubs and a pair of wide, nervous brown eyes.

"Um…hi, Dr. Shepherd," Lexie stammered. "I'm sorry…I was looking for Meredith and Dr. Yang said she was here. Well, actually, she said—well, I probably shouldn't repeat what she said. But anyway—I was looking for Meredith, and…obviously she's not here—"

"Dr. Grey," Derek interrupted, rubbing one hand over his face. Meredith's babbling had nothing on her younger sister's. At least when Meredith did it, it was cute. "Meredith was here. She just left; she has a surgery."

"Oh," Lexie frowned. "Okay then. I'm sorry to bother you—"

"Was there something you needed?" Derek asked. "I can give her a message for you. Let her know you were looking for her."

"No, that's okay," Lexie shook her head. She turned to go, pulling the door shut behind her, and Derek reached for another applicant's file. "Actually—" Lexie burst back into his office, and Derek looked to her expectantly. "Can I…ask you something? About Meredith?"

Derek took a deep breath. He'd probably gotten himself in too far; what had he been thinking? Certainly not that Lexie Grey was about to engage him in a heart-to-heart on Meredith. This could _not_ bode well for his headache. "Sure…" he replied hesitantly.

"I know you weren't here for Christmas," Lexie began. "She told me you were going home to see your family. She had brunch with me and Molly, while you were gone…but you probably knew that already, didn't you?" Derek nodded. "Right," Lexie sighed. "Of course you knew that. It's just…has Meredith said anything to you about that? The brunch?"

He'd definitely gotten himself in too far. "What do you mean?" he replied evasively. He knew exactly why Meredith had been so standoffish around Lexie for the past week, but he wasn't nearly stupid enough to actually _tell_ Lexie.

"It's just…she's been acting weird since then," Lexie explained. "We were having a really good time, and then she had to leave suddenly…and ever since, she's been avoiding me at the hospital and…I don't know. I just thought…if I had done something or said something…I thought maybe she might have mentioned something to you…"

Derek inhaled slowly and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You know that if she did…if Meredith had said anything to me…" he said gently. "I wouldn't betray her trust by telling you."

Lexie's face fell; he couldn't help noticing that Lexie wore her disappointment like Meredith. "Right. I guess you wouldn't. But..you get it, right? Meredith said you have sisters. You get why I want to know her, don't you?"

"I do," Derek nodded. "I also understand why she's reluctant to know you." He sighed deeply. Meredith was going to kill him if she ever found out about this. "Lexie…look. Meredith and I…I'm not going to jeopardize my relationship with her for you. We have enough to deal with without her thinking that I'm scheming with you behind her back."

"Oh, I'd never ask you to—" Lexie started. "I just wanted to know if she ever talked about us or—"

"She does," Derek told her. "She thinks about you, and your sister."

"Do you think…do you think she's ever going to want to know us?" Lexie asked hesitantly. "I'm not asking you to tell me what she's said, just…what you think."

"I don't know," Derek replied honestly. "I pushed her to reconnect with your father—your mother and I both did. I think if your mother were still alive, things would be very different, but when she died…things changed. Your father…to be honest, Lexie, I never want to see your father within a hundred feet of Meredith again. If Meredith wants to know you and Molly, then she will, but I won't push her. Not again."

"I understand," Lexie replied. "Thanks for your time, Dr. Shepherd."

"Lexie—" Derek called after her as she placed her hand on the door. She paused and turned back to him. "I'll talk to her. Not for you, but for Meredith, because I think it could be good for her. I won't push her toward a relationship with you, but whatever she decides, I'll support her."

Lexie grinned and her face flushed with excitement. "Thank you, Dr. Shepherd."

He nodded. "And Lexie—give her some space. You know what it's like to have a sister. Meredith is an only child. Give her some space, and when she's ready, she'll come to you."

He didn't know that that was necessarily true. He remembered Meredith promising to come to him when she was ready to try again, and she had. He _suspected_ that Meredith would come around on Lexie and Molly, once she'd had some time—and therapy—to process, but his suggestion was enough to put a hopeful smile on Lexie's face, and he felt like he'd done his good deed for the day. He hadn't lied—he _would_ talk to Meredith, if only to keep himself in the loop, but like Lexie, he held out hope that one day, Meredith would find a place for her sisters. Maybe even more so now, after he'd seen the pictures of her childhood and realized how much she'd missed, he wanted her to have a family—however unconventionally it was formed.

With Lexie gone, Derek fished a bottle of ibuprofen from his desk and swallowed two pills with a sip of water. He rubbed slow circles on his temples and tried to return his focus to the second fellowship application opened on his desk. He was perusing the list of the candidate's publications when his phone vibrated with an incoming call. He groaned as Kathleen's name and number blinked at him; he'd had enough dealing with persistent sisters for one day. "What, Kathleen?" he answered, more crossly than he'd intended.

"Jeez, Derek, don't sound so happy to hear from me," his eldest sister retorted. "What's your problem?"

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "I just have at least three days' worth of paperwork, and I feel like crap."

"Uh oh," Kathy replied. "How so?"

Derek frowned in confusion. His sister was a shrink; surely she didn't expect to diagnose his migraine over the phone. "My head feels like it might explode, if I don't throw up first—"

"Oh no! Not you, too?" Kathy cried.

Derek glared at the phone, as though the icy look would somehow transmit to his sister's apartment. "What do you mean, me _too_?"

"Maggie stayed with home Jaime and Bridget today," Kathleen explained. "They were complaining of stomach aches this morning; Maggie thought they were just whining about going back to school after Christmas break, but then Nancy was paged in the middle of a c-section to get the twins from daycare. She just got them home, and the boys' school called her to come get _them_, because they'd thrown up on the playground."

"Fantastic," Derek muttered. "So I brought some plague back from New York with me?"

"Looks like it," Kathleen chuckled. "Anyway, since you're grouchy, I'll just go ahead and tell you my good news, and then let you get back to work." As Kathleen continued talking, the pounding in Derek's head increased in intensity. Kathleen had a very warped sense of what he'd consider good news. "So?" she demanded when she'd finished. "What do you think?"

Derek could only cover his face with his free hand and laugh in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding me, Kathleen."

She wasn't.

* * *

Meredith was not unaccustomed to seeing Derek at less than his best. When she'd first met him, he'd been almost constantly charming, upbeat, and easy-going; now, she held no illusions that Derek wasn't his own special brand of dark and twisty. Still, no matter how moody and bitter and irritable she'd seen him, the one thing she _didn't_ have experience with was a _sick_ Derek. He hadn't been himself during their lunch date. She'd never known Derek to be sick, beyond the occasional migraine and one sinus infection that had lasted only a few days. All of the health food he ingested so religiously served its purpose; the only time Derek had used sick leave in the time she'd known him was when _she_ had drowned. She believed him about the headache, the way he'd acted at lunch, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something else might be going on, too.

She didn't have much time to think about Derek; after her afternoon surgery ended, she'd barely had time to change into her street clothes before rushing across town to make her therapy appointment. Seated on Dr. Hadden's couch, her mind swam with the events of the last week. So much had happened, between Derek and her sisters and Thatcher…she couldn't begin to decide where to start.

"Meredith!" Dr. Hadden smiled warmly as she entered her office. "How was your holiday?"

Meredith had never been one for small-talk. She preferred it to oversharing personal details, at least, but forced conversation had never been her favorite thing. With Dr. Hadden, however, she knew that the inquiry into how she'd spent the last week wasn't a polite formality. A month of even fleeting acquaintance with Meredith Grey's psyche was enough for even the most unobservant to recognize that holidays and Meredith did not mix well.

"It was…" Meredith began hesitantly. "It was…interesting?"

"Interesting," Dr. Hadden repeated, settling into her armchair with a thoughtful sigh. "Anything particularly noteworthy that you'd like to discuss today?"

Meredith snorted, then quickly recovered her composure. "Sorry," she said, gesturing with her hands to apologize. "It's just…I don't even know where to start."

"Okay…" Dr. Hadden pursed her lips in consideration. "What about Derek? If I remember correctly, you'd just made a big decision about your relationship just before the holidays."

Meredith nodded. "We're good. He was away with his family until a few days ago, which…wasn't easy. But he's home now…"

Dr. Hadden didn't miss the unfinished sentence, and Meredith knew she woudn't be allowed to end her thought there. "And?" the therapist prodded. Her voice was calm, soft, but no less demanding for it.

"And…things are better," Meredith replied. "We've been together since he got back. He's been sleeping over, which I wasn't going to let him do, but…it's been nice." She liked coming home to Derek, knowing that his body would weigh down the other side of the mattress, that if she turned over in her sleep, she'd have more than just a faint trace of his scent in his pillow. He'd been (for the most part) a perfect gentleman about her sex ban, but it was no less comforting to have his arms wrapped tightly around her middle as they slept, to feel his breath in her hair and his lips brushing against her neck and shoulder to wake her up the next morning. She was beginning to feel safe again, and to have that semblance of safety _without _sex preceding it…that was something she was completely unaccustomed to, but she was pretty certain she could get used to it.

Dr. Hadden didn't seem completely satisfied by Meredith's assurances. "But?" she pressed.

Meredith frowned slightly; she wondered if the therapist knew how annoying her constant pushing could be. Maybe the annoying part was that Meredith actually _paid_ the woman to pry into her personal life, a privilege she barely extended to _Derek_. "But…" she averted her eyes and resisted the urge to twist her watchband around her wrist or chew her lip. "I feel like…I feel like I'm just waiting to screw up again. Things are good right now—Derek and I, we're good. Great. But I feel like it's all borrowed time…like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know?"

"How so?" Dr. Hadden replied.

Meredith's gaze drifted, focusing on the series of photographs that offered her usual distraction. She imagined they were supposed to be relaxing, peaceful—black-and-white scenes of beaches and mountains and meadows of wildflowers. They could have been autopsy photos for all she cared—they meant that she didn't have to make eye contact while her therapist dragged her deepest fears and insecurities from her. "I know we're just ignoring the issues right now. We weren't together over the holidays and we both went through a lot, so I think right now we're happy just being together…but that's not going to last. Eventually, we have to talk and work on things, and…I _want _that to happen. I want everything finally on the table and the air cleared or whatever…I'm just nervous about that process. We're both willing to fight for us, I just…"

Dr. Hadden raised an eyebrow. "Let me stop you there, Meredith. That's one of the first really encouraging things I've heard you say. You're willing to fight. That's not the passive Meredith I met a few months ago who wanted something to push her into a leap of faith. Now, personally? In my experience, the things in life that I'm most proud of, the things I appreciate most…the very _best_ things I have, are those that I've fought for the hardest."

Meredith could agree with that. There were few things in her life that she _did_ value that dearly, but she'd fought tooth and nail for them. Her medical degree—she was blessed with natural intelligence and a strong memory, but she hadn't just breezed through four years of medical school after more than a year of partying and trying to drink away as many brain cells as possible. She'd had her fair share of boys and booze in med school, too, but she'd had _more_ nights spent high on caffeine, poring over textbooks, diagrams, and notes as she crammed for an exam. Her exams her final year had been complicated by the dramatic worsening over her mother's condition, which had forced Meredith to manage her mother's affairs from the opposite end of the country while simultaneously preparing for the most important test of her life.

Her spot in her residency program—Seattle Grace was tough, one of the most competitive programs in the country, and while she had no doubts that her mother's name may have held some sway, she'd fought since then to establish her own worth. And now Derek—the roller coaster she'd been on with Derek had been a challenge of epic proportions, and he'd been the one fighting to keep them afloat for most of their relationship, but now? She'd dragged herself to a freaking therapist. She was fighting.

"I'm fighting," she repeated out loud. "I just…I am worried. We're going to work everything out, it's just…I can't help worrying, you know? I'm a worrier, and even if I fight like hell, I'm afraid of failing again. Of still not being enough, I guess. Part of that's Derek, because of Addison, and Rose, but…I know part of it goes back way before Derek."

"To your father?" Dr. Hadden asked. When Meredith nodded, Dr. Hadden continued. "Do you think your parents failed? That they didn't fight hard enough for their marriage?"

Meredith laughed. "They fought," she said, remembering nights lying awake in her bedroom, the muffled sounds of her parents' raised, angry voices permeating the walls. "Just not for each other. Not for me."

"Do you feel that they didn't think you were worth fighting for?" Dr. Hadden asked gently.

Meredith took a deep breath and blinked back the tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I think my mother was more concerned, at least at first, with keeping my father from having me. I was ammunition she could use. My father…I don't know about him, not anymore."

"And why is that?" Dr. Hadden urged.

"He had Lexie," Meredith smiled wryly, and then she found herself telling Dr. Hadden what she'd learned at brunch. The story spilled out, and she found that even though she'd kept it all to herself after telling Derek, the wounds were still raw. Nothing had healed, and the hurt and anger were just as strong as they had been the night she'd broken down on the phone with Derek. "And now," Meredith finished, "Now, I see Lexie at the hospital and she's completely unaware, and she just wants to be sisters…and I can't. I can hardly look at her, and I know that's not fair to her, but…I just can't."

Meredith hated that the blame for Thatcher's mistakes had transferred to how she saw Lexie. Lexie hadn't done anything wrong--didn't even _know_ what had happened--but ever since the brunch, every time Meredith saw her sister, all she could hear were the empty promises her five-year-old self had clung to and her mother's frustrated wishes that she do more, try harder, _be_ better.

Ellis, Meredith was sure, would have loved Lexie, with her photographic memory and super-dedication to her studies. Meredith had rarely been _sober_ at sixteen, much less graduating high school early. Meredith had celebrated her twenty-third birthday in Prague with Sadie (and later that night, with the man who'd bought her one too many rounds of absinthe); _forget_ starting her residency at that age. Medical school hadn't even become the plan until three weeks later, when her mother's phone call had finally woken her. She'd been in London then, thankfully. Her mother's diagnosis had been instantly sobering, and as she'd nearly tripped over Sadie, sprawled across the floor where she'd collapsed at whatever hour she'd gotten in, Meredith had never been more grateful for the English language. As she'd fumbled with her passport and credit card, trying to secure a flight on the next plane back to the States, Meredith had been certain that a language barrier would have been the final blow it took to crack open her already pounding head.

Lexie probably wouldn't have been so caught up in the quest for self-destruction that she missed the signs of her own mother's pending dementia. If Susan had had Alzheimer's, Meredith was sure the nursing home wouldn't have had half the trouble they'd experienced trying to get Meredith to show up for visits. If they'd been able to anticipate Susan's death, Lexie would have been by her mother's side, not hovering between life and death because she was so screwed up that she'd actually had to _deliberate_ whether she wanted to be with the man she loved or stay with their dead dog. Lexie probably would have noticed _her_ dog being sick before his bone cancer had spread too far. She'd heard Izzie mention once that Lexie had been valedictorian or prom queen or something equally predictable and perfect; despite the occasional tendency to pick up inappropriate men (unless Alex had just been a moment of temporary insanity), Lexie was a saint compared to Meredith's bacchanalian past.

It was no wonder Thatcher hadn't given Meredith a second thought after Lexie the wunderkind was born. Pretty, intelligent, driven, responsible, socially accepted--Lexie was everything Ellis had wanted Meredith to be—and obviously everything Thatcher had ever wanted.

_She's in medical school. Harvard. You should see how my dad is about her. He's like, crazy proud…_

"I shouldn't resent her so much," Meredith said. "I get that. I don't even _want_ to be half the things she is. I wouldn't have been caught dead at the prom. But…it's just feeling like I wasn't good enough for my dad to fight for…and then what happened later, with Derek and Addison and Rose—"

"Meredith, do you really think it was a contest? Between you and Lexie?" Dr. Hadden asked. "She wasn't even born yet."

"She was a clean slate," Meredith shrugged. "She didn't have my mother to screw her up. Susan was pregnant, and the divorce wasn't final. He didn't fight for custody because he had Lexie on the way. I wasn't needed."

"How does that theory fit with Addison and Rose, then?" Dr. Hadden challenged. "You can say Rose was a clean slate, but Derek had a long history with Addison. From what you've told me, it was a very complicated history."

Meredith shook her head stubbornly, but when she tried to protest, she couldn't form a solid argument. She was quiet for a moment while thoughts raced in her mind, until she said the only thing she could. "He picked me. In the end, they weren't enough." She smiled softly, but then backtracked. "But he didn't, at first…at first, I wasn't enough for him to fight for. He tried with someone less damaged, someone who didn't need as much work—"

"But he's picked you," Dr. Hadden said firmly. "And if he gives up again? That doesn't mean that you weren't worth fighting for."

"He won't," Meredith replied. "Derek's not giving up again. _I'm_ not giving up again."

Dr. Hadden smiled and leaned back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. "Good."

The remainder of her hour passed quickly, and as she crossed the largely empty parking lot to her Jeep, Meredith couldn't wait to get home. Her day had been physically exhausting, and therapy had drained her of any remaining energy. She was looking forward to scrounging up some sort of dinner (unless Derek had cooked, but if he was still not feeling well, she doubted it), scrubbing the dried tears off of her face (preferably _before_ Derek saw them), _maybe_ getting a shower, and then slipping into bed with Derek, who might already be sleeping off his migraine by the time she got home.

When she pulled up to the house, the windows were dark and Derek's car was absent from the driveway; Meredith was surprised by how easily she'd slipped into this routine of _expecting_ him to be home when she was finally able to leave the hospital. Sleeping alone just hadn't been in the plan for tonight. As she unlocked the door and stepped into the dark foyer, she fished her phone from her pocket and called Derek.

She was halfway up the staircase when he answered, his voice scratchy and rough. "Hey," Meredith said. "Where are you?"

"Home," Derek replied with a weak cough.

Meredith frowned. "No, you're not. I just walked in the door; no one's here."

"The trailer, Meredith," Derek clarified.

Meredith froze, one step before the second-floor landing. "Oh," she said flatly. "You didn't tell me you wanted to stay out there tonight. I get it—it's the roommate thing, right? Just let me pack a bag and I'll come out—"

"Meredith—"Derek interrupted. She heard the hesitation in his voice and her heart skipped a beat. Even though she'd _just_ gone through this, just assured herself and Dr. Hadden of the renewed strength and security of their relationship, she couldn't stop the old doubt from creeping in and gutting her hope with its sinister, subversive whisper. _He doesn't want you there. He's already tired of you_.

He wasn't, she told herself firmly. He wanted her. Maybe not tonight, but there had to be an explanation. "Oh—I—" she started weakly.

"Meredith," he said again, a little more firmly. "I'm sick, Mere. Didn't you get my message? I called you about an hour ago."

Meredith took the phone away from her ear and glanced down, noticing for the first time the voicemail icon lit up at the top of the screen. "Sorry," she said. "I had it on silent while I was at therapy. I didn't notice before I called you. I just saw you weren't home and thought you might have had to go back in to work."

"It's okay," Derek assured her. "How was therapy?"

"Um…good," Meredith replied vaguely. "We had a lot to catch up on. I'll tell you about it tonight. Do you want me to bring anything with me? I can run by the pharmacy or something before I get on the ferry—"

She was being stubborn, she knew, but tonight, fresh from raising questions of her own worth again, she wanted him. "_Meredith_," he sighed. "I don't want you to get sick, too."

Considering that she'd spent a good part of their lunch together kissing him, she was pretty sure that if he _was _contagious, she'd already been exposed to whatever pathogen had sent him home, and pointed out as much. "You shouldn't be by yourself, Derek," she insisted. "I thought it was just a migraine? What are your symptoms?"

"_Meredith_," he groaned in exasperation. "Please, Meredith, just…stop. It's not that I don't want you here, but—"

"You don't want me to see you sick," Meredith realized. She laughed as a smile spread across her face; she should have seen it sooner. It was such a Derek thing to do, refusing to let her see him sick. He didn't seem to realize that after all the not-so-dreamy sides of him she'd seen, adding pale, nauseated, and vomiting to the list weren't likely to faze her. "Derek, don't be such a baby."

"I'm not being a baby," he replied petulantly. "As much as I'm enjoying this mother-hen side of you, I just…it's not necessary. I'm sure I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Fine," she relented with a sigh. "I'll stay at my place tonight. But if you're still sick tomorrow, I'm coming out there. I'll make chicken soup or something."

"Meredith—" Derek started carefully. "You do realize that the idea is to make me feel _better_, right? Not that I wouldn't appreciate the effort, but I'm not sure that this is the time to practice your cooking…"

"Okay, okay," Meredith rolled her eyes. At least he'd kept his sense of humor. "I'll get Izzie to make chicken soup, and I'll bring it to you. I _can_ microwave, you know."

He chuckled weakly. "We'll see how I feel tomorrow. I think if I just sleep through the worst of it…"

"Yeah," Meredith agreed as she collapsed on her bed. "Do you want me to let you go?"

Derek's response was a muffled grunt that could have indicated a yes or a no. "Not yet," he mumbled. "You were going to tell me about therapy."

"Right," Meredith sighed. "Um…it was fine, I guess. I feel like it was a lot more recap than actual progress, since I had the week off. But it wasn't awful…we talked about Lexie a lot, actually."

"Really?" Derek sounded surprised, and genuinely interested. "What about Lexie?"

"Just…how I'm unjustifiably resenting her for my dad choosing her over me," Meredith replied, a bit more flippantly than the subject called for. "Trying to find a way to quit blaming her for being better than me."

"She's not better than you," Derek replied immediately.

Meredith smiled softly. "Thanks. We talked about you, too."

"Really?" Derek laughed. "What did you—" he stopped abruptly, and Meredith could barely make out a muffled groan.

"Derek?" she said gently. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said weakly. "Fine."

"Derek, are you _sure_ you don't want me to come out there?" she offered again. She didn't like the idea of him being alone, isolated at the trailer and throwing up all night. Odds were he wouldn't dehydrate or choke on his own vomit, but she wasn't above using those as supporting evidence for why he should let her take care of him.

Unfortunately, he was just as stubborn as she was. "I'm sure, Mere. Really, I'm okay."

"You're not okay," she argued. 'I'm going to let you go so you can rest, and I'll tell you more about therapy tomorrow, okay?"

"That might be a good idea," Derek conceded. "I'm sorry, Meredith."

"Don't be sorry," Meredith shook her head. "You can be sorry if I start throwing up in the middle of the night. Will you _please_ call me if you need me tonight?"

"Promise," he replied.

"Okay then. Feel better, and get some sleep."

They said goodnight, and Meredith hung up the phone, letting it fall to the bed beside her. She wasn't looking forward to Derek's side of the bed remaining undisturbed. With a frustrated sigh, she kicked off her shoes. One fell at the foot of the bed, and the other flew across the room, hitting the wall with a dull thud. The house was painfully quiet. Too quiet.

She couldn't blame Derek for being sick, any more than she could reasonably blame Lexie for having the life she hadn't, but Derek couldn't have gotten sick on a worse night. She hoped Izzie or Alex would make it home soon; she'd had enough time with her own thoughts for one night, and if her roommates didn't provide the security Derek would have…at least they'd be a distraction.


End file.
